* Background is here if you need it. The Hill…

The Supreme Court on Wednesday revived an Illinois Congress member’s lawsuit over a state mail-in ballot law, paving the way for political candidates nationwide to challenge election laws more easily in their states.

The justices ruled 7-2 that Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) has the legal right to sue Illinois over its ability to count mail-in ballots received after Election Day, a practice targeted by President Trump and his allies.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion over the dissents of two of the court’s liberals: Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

* More from Crain’s…

The decision clears the way for Bost to press his claim that Illinois unlawfully allows mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to 14 days later, even as the court weighs a separate case that could ultimately resolve the underlying dispute. […]

Bost, from downstate Murphysboro, has argued the Illinois extended deadline is superseded by federal election law. But two lower courts ruled that the Bost and two presidential electors lacked legal standing to press their suit.

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago rejected Bost’s claims that the extended mail-in ballot count would require his campaign to spend more money on ballot monitoring and would threaten his electoral chances. The appeals court noted that Bost had won the 2022 election with 75 percent of the vote and thus any harm from the extended deadline was hypothetical. […]

One irony is that while the decision allows Bost to revive his suit, the Supreme Court has since taken up a separate case from Mississippi that directly involves the question of whether federal election statutes preempt a state law permitting mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day. The decision in that case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, could settle the underlying issue raised in Bost’s suit.

* From Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion…

Candidates, in short, are not “mere bystanders” in their own elections. They have an obvious personal stake in how the result is determined and regarded. Departures from the preordained rules cause them particularized
and concrete harm. […]

Win or lose, candidates suffer when the process departs from the law. Thus, the long-shot and shoo-in alike would suffer harm if a State chose to conduct its election by, say, flipping a coin. The result of such an election would not reflect the will of the people, and the candidates would lose the opportunity to compete for the people’s support. So too, similar harms would result from less dramatic departures—for example, if a State decided to discard a random 10% of cast votes. Whether these decisions help, hurt, or have no effect on a candidate’s electoral prospects, they deprive the candidate of a fair process and an accurate result.

* Justice Katanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion…

Alarmingly, today’s ruling also has far-reaching implications beyond Bost’s election, since dispensing with our usual standing requirements opens the floodgates to exactly the type of troubling election-related litigation the Court purportedly wants to avoid. For example, under the Court’s new harm-free candidate-standing rule, an electoral candidate who loses in a landslide can apparently still file a disruptive legal action in federal court after the election is over.

All he must do is assert that an election rule somehow deprived him of a fair process—even if that rule played no role in the election’s outcome or otherwise caused him harm. That possibility is especially concerning given the host of election-related regulations that States must promulgate when exercising their constitutional duty to set the “Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections.” Art.

States regulate everything from a ballot’s chain of custody to its format—all of which the majority would permit candidates to challenge in court without offering any theory of how such rules harm them personally. It is impossible to square this outcome with the practical concerns the Court identifies. Ironically, then, it is the Court’s new and generous candidate-standing rule that invites late-breaking judicial intervention into the political process in a manner that is “as practically untenable as it is undemocratic.”

* Justice Robert’s rebuff…

We do not share the dissent’s concern that our recognition of this commonsense reality will “open[] the floodgates” to candidate-led challenges to ballot “format.” Indeed, the dissent itself suggests that courts already “ ‘often decide ballot-design cases,’ ” pointing to a case in which a court concluded that candidates did have standing to challenge ‘the form of election ballots.’ To the extent the dissent’s concern is that federal courts will be inundated with more trivial “format” challenges, post, at 12, to things like “ballot font and typeface,” it is neither clear why candidates would waste their resources in this way nor on what basis in federal law such suits could be brought. In any event, we address today only candidates’ standing to challenge rules that, like Illinois’s, govern the counting of votes in their elections.

…Adding… ILGOP Chair Kathy Salvi…

“Today, the United States Supreme Court agreed that Congressman Bost has the right to appeal Illinois’ disastrous mail-in voting laws,” said ILGOP Chair Kathy Salvi. “Illinoisans deserve to know their election results as early as possible and should not have to wait days, or even weeks, to know election results. It is imperative that Illinois leads with commonsense policies that strengthen and secure our election process.”

…Adding… US Rep. Mike Bost…

U.S. Rep. Mike Bost (IL-12) applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision today granting him standing in his lawsuit challenging an Illinois law that allows vote-by-mail ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day to be counted. Vote-by-mail ballots without postmarks can also currently be tabulated up to 14 days later if they are dated on or before Election Day.

“I’m thankful the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled strongly in our favor and concluded we have standing to challenge Illinois’ unconstitutional law allowing vote-by-mail ballots to be counted two weeks after Election Day,” said Bost. “This is a critically important step forward in the fight for election integrity and fair elections. I look forward to continuing to pursue this case as we navigate the next stages of the legal process. It’s vitally important that we restore the people’s trust in our elections.”

Bost is being represented by Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation that fights for accountability and integrity in law, politics and government.

“This is the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “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. I thank Judicial Watch’s legion of supporters and our election law team that helped achieve this historic result.”