Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned Monday that the Court’s ruling on mail-in ballots opens the floodgates for potential voter fraud opportunities.
In a 5-4 decision authored by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal law allows states to continue counting non-military mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. Alito wrote in his dissenting opinion that the decision “leaves open opportunities for voter fraud that may further undermine Americans’ faith in the integrity of this country’s elections.”
“Diverse sources have recognized that mail-in ballots increase the potential for fraud,” Alito added. “In 2005, a committee chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker found that absentee voting was ‘the largest source of potential voter fraud’ in American elections.”
The conservative justice also referred to a case from 2008 in which the late Justice John Paul Stevens “recognized that the risk of voter fraud ‘perpetrated using absentee ballots’ is ‘real’ and ‘could affect the outcome of a close election.’”
Alito wrote further that the Supreme Court’s ruling opens up “Pandora’s box.”
“Given that fact, is a voter’s ‘selection’ truly ‘final’ when he or she puts a ballot in the mailbox?” his dissent continued. “The majority dodges this question, offering the passing suggestion that Mississippi’s statute would be preempted only insofar as it allows voters to recall their ballots.”
“May the Fifth Circuit hold as much on remand? Must state law expressly prohibit voters from using recall services? Do the Postal Service’s or FedEx’s mail-recall policies violate the election-day [statutes] as applied to absentee ballots?” Alito added. “For state legislatures trying to understand what the election-day statutes allow, the majority’s decision opens Pandora’s box.”
Multiple members of Congress blasted the ruling — which law professor Jonathan Turley had called a “surprise.”
Republican Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt wrote Monday in a statement posted to X that the Court’s opinion was “A shockingly wrong” one. Meanwhile, Republican Arizona Rep. Abe Hamadeh similarly blasted the decision as “disastrous” in an X post.
“Remember Election Day?” Hamadeh wrote in the social media post. “This disastrous SCOTUS decision, authored by Justice Barrett, guarantees we’ll keep drifting away from it — as our sacred elections get bogged down by endless mail-in ballots and never-ending counts.”
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