The Supreme Court’s review of Mississippi’s mail-in ballot law is unfolding against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s push to curb mail-in voting during his second term, underscoring a wider national debate over how elections should be conducted.

Trump has taken steps to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, including signing an executive order aimed at eliminating them in federal elections. Several Republican-led states have already moved in that direction.

The dispute now before the justices, however, stems from a separate legal battle. The case centers on a challenge brought by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi’s voting law, which was adopted after the COVID-19 pandemic and permits ballots to be counted if they arrive up to five days after Election Day.

During oral arguments, Mississippi officials faced pointed questioning from conservative members of the court, who raised concerns about potential long-term consequences. The justices posed a series of hypotheticals about where such policies could lead, including scenarios involving early voting and ballots cast by American troops stationed overseas.

“If history teaches anything,” Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, “[it is that] as soon as anything is allowed, it will happen.”

Gorsuch continued to press attorneys on how far states could extend their deadlines for accepting ballots if the court were to uphold Mississippi’s law.

“If we were to rule against you, is there anything that would limit a state from allowing a receipt by election officials up until the day of the next Congress?” Gorsuch asked at one point during arguments.

Paul Clement, representing the Republican Party and Libertarian voters, argued that siding with Mississippi could create virtually unlimited flexibility for states in setting their own rules.

“Maybe the next state can figure out a way to have an election without anybody even receiving anything, I don’t know,” Clement said. “That seems to me to be a large reason why Election Day should mean ‘Election Day.’”

Justice Samuel Alito also appeared sympathetic to the argument that Election Day should be understood as a fixed point in time, rather than a window that stretches beyond a single day.

“We have lots of phrases that involve two words, the second of which is ‘day,’” Alito interjected, before listing “Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington’s birthday,” and Independence Day, he said, adding that “they are all particular ‘days.'”

“So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase ‘Election Day,'” he said. “I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place, or almost everything.”

At its core, the case reflects an ongoing legal struggle over how much authority states should have in setting election procedures, particularly when federal contests are involved.

The issue arrives as the justices are also considering other major election-related disputes this term, including cases involving redistricting based on race and limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates.

Attorneys representing Mississippi argued that federal law requires only that ballots be cast by Election Day, not necessarily received by that date.

Lawyers for Mississippi told the court that an “‘election’ is the conclusive choice of an officer… So the federal Election-Day statutes require only that the voters cast their ballots by Election Day.”

“The election has then occurred, even if election officials do not receive all ballots by that day.”

Republican officials say the case is critical to maintaining trust in the electoral system and preventing prolonged vote-counting periods.

“Watson v. RNC is about a simple principle: ballots must be received by Election Day,” Ally Triolo, the communications director for the RNC’s Election Integrity efforts, said Monday. “This prevents elections from dragging on for days and weeks after voters have cast their ballots, causing confusion and undermining our elections.”

A decision from the Supreme Court on the issue of when mail-in ballots must be counted is expected by June.