Supreme Court Splits on Election Cases Ahead of US Midterms

The Supreme Court issued two major election-law rulings in the final days of June: on June 29, it upheld state grace periods allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received afterward (a loss for the Trump administration, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett over a four-justice dissent), and on June 30, in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, it struck down FECA's coordinated party-expenditure limits as a First Amendment violation, a win for Republican fundraising ahead of the midterms. Election and political law practices should read these as a mixed but net-liberalizing signal: the mail-ballot ruling preserves existing state deadlines in over a dozen states for now but explicitly leaves room for Congress to legislate a uniform receipt deadline, while the campaign-finance ruling removes a significant restriction on coordinated party spending with immediate effect for the 2026 midterm cycle. Corporate and PAC compliance counsel should immediately reassess coordinated-expenditure structuring opportunities in light of the FEC ruling, while election administration and voting-rights teams should monitor the Court's pending review of RNC v. Mi Familia Vota (Arizona proof-of-citizenship rules), which could affect voter-roll practices before 2028. The administration's continued push for the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter mail-voting and citizenship-verification requirements, remains a legislative wildcard clients should track.