Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
The justices ruled 5-4 Monday that states, including Oregon, can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a practiced challenged by President Donald Trump. Lane County elections officials say November’s election procedures locally will be “business as usual.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Monday, June 29, ruled that states including Oregon can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.
The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. Oregon law allows those ballots to be counted within seven days after the election.
The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
Among those officials is Lane County Clerk Tommy Gong, who supervises the county’s elections.
“The pledge for county clerks or registrars is that we always follow the law, so the law stands as it is right now, and we’re going to continue business as usual,” Gong said. “So, I don’t have to change my (ballot) envelope design, for example.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the court’s majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices.
Federal laws setting a single Election Day “leave open when those votes must be received,” Barrett wrote.
Congress could change the law, she said. “If varied deadlines for ballot receipt similarly call for a national solution, the American people must choose it through their elected representatives,” Barrett wrote.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent for four justices. “Not only is today’s decision inconsistent with statutory text, legal context, historical practice, and precedent; it also threatens to produce lamentable consequences,” Alito wrote. “The majority’s holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans’ confidence in election integrity.”
The legal challenge was part of Trump’s broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience in numerous states. Trump has repeatedly claimed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 resulted from fraud even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.
Trump called the court ruling a “tremendous loss” and renewed his call for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which has made it through the House of Representatives but not the Senate.
“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Among other changes, the legislation would limit who is able to receive a mail ballot and impose a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement for registering to vote.
The court heard arguments in March in a case from Mississippi pitting the state against Trump’s Republican administration and the Republican and Libertarian parties. At issue was whether federal law sets a single Election Day that requires ballots to be both cast by voters and received by state officials.
Oregon’s vote-by-mail tradition
Oregon was a pioneer in using vote-by-mail elections, with Del Riley, a longtime county clerk in Linn County, helping lead the way as early as 1981.
In Lane County, Gong disputed claims that voting by mail leads to fraud. He said Oregon’s vote-by-mail system includes “lots of checks and balances” to “ensure the integrity of the election,” including the requirement that voters sign ballot envelopes and chain-of-custody and accountability procedures for ballots.
Gong added that voting by mail is more cost-efficient than traditional elections, which require polling places and the need to recruit and train election judges as well as other expenses.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read called the decision “a win for Oregon voters,” and said the “post-Election Day grace period protects thousands of Oregonians’ votes from being thrown out because of delays.”
But Read, a Democrat, also repeated his advice to Oregon voters: “Vote early and use an official drop box. If you have to return your ballot by mail, do it at least a week before Election Day, especially if you live more than 50 miles from Portland.”
Most Lane County voters followed Read’s advice in the May 2026 primary election, with 94,460 voters using a drop box and 31,201 mailing their ballots.
In a statement, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield praised the court decision: “Our state laws ensure that every vote counts — including mailed ballots that are postmarked by Election Day,” he said. “Those laws remain valid after today’s ruling, and Oregonians should continue to vote, make their voices heard, and be proud of our elections system.”
Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, also applauded the ruling: “This is essential for Oregonians across the state to be able to participate in our democracy in a way that is accessible and convenient,” she said in a statement. “Oregon has a long history of conducting elections safely and securely in an election system that allows every voter in Oregon the right to a free, fair, and equal say in our democracy.”
