The U.S. Supreme Court has revived a lawsuit from 12th District Republican Congressman Mike Bost challenging a state election law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to 14 days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by the day of the election. The decision, issued Wednesday, was 7-2, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
The case against the Illinois State Board of Elections was initially dismissed by the federal district court and upheld by the Seventh Circuit because Bost was found to lack legal standing. But the Supreme Court’s majority found that as a candidate for federal office, Bost does have a “concrete and particularized interest” in the rules that govern how votes in his election are counted.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that candidates have a personal stake in election rules “regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the costs of their campaigns.” The high court has sent the case back to the lower courts, where it will now proceed on the merits.
Bost and two Republican presidential-elector nominees filed their original suit in 2022, arguing that Illinois’ extended deadline for counting ballots conflicts with federal statutes that define Election Day. Their complaint did not raise allegations of fraud.
Illinois officials had opposed Bost’s bid to take the case to the Supreme Court, warning that a broad rule allowing candidates to sue over election laws could open the door to expanded litigation in future elections.
This ruling is procedural — it does not strike down the Illinois law itself. But it clears the way for Bost’s claims to be heard in lower federal court and could influence other challenges to late-arriving mail-in ballot practices across the country.