The Supreme Court held in a 7-2 ruling on Wednesday that candidates for office have standing to sue over ballot concerns. 

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and two of the state’s presidential electors had challenged a state law that allows mail ballots arriving 14 days after Election Day to be counted.  

The high court heard the case only on the question of Bost’s standing to sue, not on the merits of the voting law. Two lower courts had dismissed the challenge based on standing. 

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal justice, joined the court’s six conservative-leaning justices for the majority. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion. 

“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless of whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns,” Roberts wrote. 

Judicial Watch represented the plaintiffs in the case. 

“This is the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a public statement.

“Too many courts have denied candidates the standing to challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous ballots that arrive after Election Day. American citizens concerned about election integrity should celebrate this Supreme Court victory.”

To make his case, Bost argued that federal law established Election Day, but Illinois allows votes to come in two weeks longer than federal law allows. This would make such ballots effectively unlawful, he argued, allowing the possibility of unlawful ballots costing him the election or reducing his margin for victory. 

The plaintiffs also argued the Bost campaign is further injured because it has to pay staff for an additional two weeks after the election. 

Federal law 2 U.S. Code Section 7 states Election Day for federal offices is the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in even-numbered years. 

Illinois argued that mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, but can arrive to be counted up to two weeks later. 

A district court and a 2-1 majority of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the state law, or in other words, were not actually harmed by it. 

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which defended this case, did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal for this story. 

The case will now go back to the lower courts to be heard on the merits.

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