Across the country, states are considering laws that would shorten ballot receipt deadlines — a move that could result in election officials tossing out tens of thousands of ballots cast by eligible citizens. In 2025 alone, lawmakers in 17 states have considered bills that would move mail ballot return deadlines earlier.
Taking their cue from President Donald Trump’s executive order on elections and under the guise of speeding up results, these policies do not reflect the modern reality.
All states require a few days after Election Day to count every ballot. Observers only perceive a “delay” when close elections require election officials to tabulate nearly every ballot before the race can be “called.” Even in Florida, which boasts about counting all votes on election night, voters have two days after Election Day to cure ballots. Florida also accepts absentee ballots from overseas voters for up to 10 days after the election.
Other factors that can lead to longer wait times include state laws regarding how and when election officials can begin processing ballots, as well as longer ballots that take additional time to process.
To put it succinctly: there are many factors entirely outside of voters’ control that determine when votes are counted and reported – and none of them will be solved by throwing out lawful ballots.
Grace Periods Ensure Every Eligible Citizen – Including Military and Rural Voters – Can Participate in Our Elections
Ballot return grace periods – which are currently available to all voters in 16 states and Washington, D.C. – are essential to ensuring all Americans can participate in our elections.
Some states have different grace periods specifically for overseas and military voters, who disproportionately rely on mail voting to cast their ballots. Military voters stationed outside their home county in Texas, for example, have six additional days for their ballots to be received, provided that their ballot is postmarked by Election Day. Similarly, in Florida, ballots from overseas voters are accepted up to 10 days after an election.
Domestic voters – especially rural voters, voters without access to drop boxes or early voting sites, and voters whose circumstances unexpectedly change close to Election Day – also rely on these grace periods to ensure their voices are heard.
Grace periods ensure every ballot is counted – even in cases of unexpected mail delays, which are not uncommon: In September 2024, state election officials from across the country warned the postmaster general that ballots were arriving more than 10 days after postmark – long after USPS’s own First-Class delivery standards.
To underscore the potential for unfairness made possible by an earlier ballot return deadline, two citizens could mail their completed ballots at the exact same time on the exact same day – but only one might be counted, simply because of mail delivery delays wholly outside of their control.
This is Not Hypothetical: Earlier Deadlines Result In Fewer Votes Counted
North Carolina offers a clear example of the harm to voters. In 2023, state lawmakers repealed the three-day grace period that allowed mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted.
Then in 2024, the first general election under the new deadline, voters were hit with a perfect storm: Hurricane Helene, widespread disruptions, and mail service delays. As a result, more than 2,300 ballots were rejected – ballots that would have been counted just a year earlier. That’s not a small number in a state where a recent state Supreme Court race was decided by fewer than 800 votes.
North Carolina isn’t alone. In Pennsylvania, nearly 7,000 ballots were rejected for arriving after close of polls on Election Day in 2024. By contrast, when the state extended its ballot receipt deadline due to the pandemic in 2020, 10,000 such ballots were counted – votes that would have otherwise been discarded.
Impact on Deployed Military and Overseas Voters
The consequences for military and overseas voters – who already face longer delivery times – are even worse. The Federal Voting Assistance Program found that missing the return deadline is the #1 reason military and overseas ballots are rejected. These voters don’t have the option of showing up at a polling place, and often rely on mail services that vary widely in speed, especially internationally.
Arizona, Texas Signal What’s to Come
Three states – North Dakota, Utah, and Kansas – enacted new laws this year that require election officials to toss out ballots placed in the mail on or before Election Day, if the mail carrier delivers them after the election. We expect to see lawmakers prioritize similar proposals that failed to cross the finish line this year (such as H.B. 1091 and H.B. 3632 in Texas) in future sessions.
This year, Arizona lawmakers introduced H.B. 2703 and H.C.R. 2013, both of which would move the mail ballot return deadline for hand-delivered ballots from the close of polls on Election Day to the Friday before. Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed H.B. 2703, but legislators have said they plan to send the extreme measure to voters on the 2026 ballot.
If the policy had been in place during the 2024 election, more than 260,000 Arizonans — nearly 8% of the state’s electorate — who returned their ballots on Election Day would be affected. And that doesn’t include the thousands more who dropped their ballots off on the weekend or Monday leading up to Election Day. Recent polling – conducted by our 501(c)(4) affiliate Secure Democracy USA – found that earlier deadlines are deeply unpopular: 65% of registered Arizona voters want to keep the current Election Day deadline for returning ballots.
There are Better Ways to Speed Up Results
While shortening ballot receipt deadlines curtails voter access, there are changes states can make to improve efficiency while ensuring all eligible votes are counted.
- Allow election officials to start processing mail ballots earlier. Since 2021, 16 states have passed laws giving election officials more time to process mail ballots, and another 13 states are considering it this year.
- Switch early voting from “in-person absentee” to Election Day-style voting, where ballots go directly into tabulators instead of sitting in envelopes awaiting processing. Both Michigan and North Carolina made this switch in 2023.
- Invest in infrastructure and staffing to handle growing numbers of mail ballots.
- Educate voters and improve tracking systems, so no one is left in the dark about whether their vote counted.
In these ways, we can modernize our election systems so every eligible vote can be counted — quickly, securely, and accurately.