Kansas Supreme Court Rejects Effort to Enforce Election Day Mail Ballot Deadline in 5-2 Vote – Late Ballots Will Be Counted Days After the Election

In a 5-2 decision Thursday, the Kansas Supreme Court declined to intervene and restore the state’s new strict mail-ballot deadline, leaving in place a lower court order that allows mailed ballots received up to three days after Election Day to be counted.

The ruling is a major blow to election integrity efforts by Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Attorney General Kris Kobach just days before the August 4 primary.

Kansas lawmakers, exercising their constitutional authority, passed Senate Bill 4 in 2025. The measure eliminated the three-day “grace period” that had been in place since 2017 and required advance voting ballots to arrive by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill; the Republican-controlled Legislature overrode her. The change restored the traditional Election Day receipt deadline Kansas had used for roughly 150 years before the 2017 experiment.

Left-wing groups including Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, Loud Light, and the Disability Rights Center of Kansas immediately sued, claiming the straightforward deadline somehow violated the state constitution’s equal protection, due process, and voting rights provisions.

On July 16, after thousands of advance ballots had already been mailed with clear instructions that they must be received by Election Day, Douglas County District Judge Carl Folsom granted a temporary injunction, reinstating the three-day post-Election Day window.

Schwab appealed. The Court of Appeals refused to stay the injunction. Schwab then sought emergency transfer and review from the Kansas Supreme Court.

On Thursday, the high court denied both requests without commenting on the merits, leaving the activist lower court order intact for the primary and beyond while the underlying case continues.

“This court denies both Secretary Schwab’s emergency motion to transfer this appeal from the Court of Appeals and his emergency petition for review,” the majority wrote, stressing that it was not deciding the ultimate constitutionality of Senate Bill 4.

“The temporary injunction may not ultimately survive appellate scrutiny, but it is not plainly erroneous,” the majority added. Read the Kansas Supreme Court’s order.

Justices Caleb Stegall and K.J. Wall Jr. issued a blistering dissent, warning that the majority’s refusal to act would “invite only suspicions about the integrity of our election outcomes.”

“There are thousands of ballots at stake in this lawsuit,” the dissenting justices wrote. “They are now going to be counted. But their ultimate legality will not be determined by this court until long after the results are announced.”

They called that result “untenable and unacceptable.”

The dissent also argued that the lower courts ignored the state’s interest in conducting elections under laws adopted by the elected Legislature.

The justices warned that, under Senate Bill 4, counting ballots that missed the statutory deadline would dilute the votes of citizens who complied with the rules.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that federal law does not require mail ballots to be received by Election Day. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Court’s three liberal justices in the majority.

That ruling, however, left individual states free to establish their own ballot-receipt deadlines. Kansas lawmakers exercised that authority by passing Senate Bill 4—only to have a district judge block it under the Kansas Constitution.

For now, Kansas ballots postmarked by Election Day may continue arriving and being counted for three additional days while voters wait to learn who actually won.