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As he left the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices had just heard arguments<\/a> Monday over whether to prevent states from counting mail ballots<\/a> that arrive after Election Day, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar texted his staff 3,000 miles away.<\/p>\n His directive: Get ready to plan how to run November’s midterm elections if the high court changes the rules when it issues its decision in June.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge is educating voters shortly before the election how the election is going to work,\u201d Aguilar, a Democrat, said. \u201cThat doesn’t happen overnight. The election planning happens long before.\u201d<\/p>\n Election officials in Nevada and 13 other states<\/a> that allow regular mail ballots sent by Election Day but arrive some period of days afterward to be counted had their attention trained on Monday’s arguments, where conservative justices appeared skeptical<\/a> of such grace periods. Fifteen other states have grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters.<\/p>\n Mail ballots, also called absentee ballots, have been the source of conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump<\/a>, who groundlessly blames them for his loss in the 2020 election<\/a>. The Republican National Committee and Libertarian Party sued to overturn Mississippi’s law permitting the counting of mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive up to five days later, the case the high court is now considering.<\/p>\n During the nearly two-hour-long arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the court’s supermajority of six conservatives, asked RNC attorney Paul Clement if a ruling during the court’s typical time in June would run afoul of a court principle to avoid handing down decisions that can disrupt upcoming elections.<\/p>\n \u201cJune would give them plenty of time,\u201d Clement said of election administrators overseeing November’s voting.<\/p>\n Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona election official who is chief programs officer at the National Association of Elections Officials’ Election Center, said that’s not the case. Most election offices have already printed flyers, signs and even ballot envelopes with the current election deadlines for use in November. They would have to scramble to reprint that material, usually done months or years in advance to save money.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody has put in their budget to reprint all of their educational material for the midterms,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cThat’s the hard spot election administrators are in.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday’s case revolves around just a fraction of the ballots counted during an election year.<\/p>\n In Nevada, for example, 98% of all mail ballots arrive before Election Day. Of those that arrive later, 95% land the next day. In Illinois, another state that allows late-arriving ballots, 106,000 ballots arrived within the state’s 14-day grace period in 2024, just under 2% of the 5.5 million votes cast in that election.<\/p>\n The biggest challenge if the mail ballot deadline were to change would be informing voters that they faced a tighter deadline, said Matt Dietrich, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections. He said the board would work local election offices to spread the word.<\/p>\n