Judicial Watch Files Reply Brief to Supreme Court in Historic Illinois Election Integrity Case

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a reply brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in a case filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who are before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law extending Election Day for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law (Rep.Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews (No. 1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644, 24-568)).

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument for October 8, 2025. This is an appeal of the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, finding that Bost and the electors lacked standing to challenge Illinois’ practice of counting ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day. The Election Day lawsuit was initially filed on May 25, 2022.

Judicial Watch’s new Supreme Court brief states: 

Illinois counts mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day. Petitioners, candidates for federal office, claim that under controlling federal law that is two weeks too long. As a result, Illinois is counting unlawful ballots and producing inaccurate vote tallies, while simultaneously hurting petitioners’ prospects at the ballot box and injuring their pocketbooks. Everyone from the United States to the ACLU and the ACLJ agrees that petitioners have standing. Illinois disputes that remarkable consensus only by ignoring common sense (and the dangers produced by the Seventh Circuit’s rule) and by imagining non-existent waivers that did not deter the Seventh Circuit from denying standing because Congressman Bost’s electoral prospects were too bright and his pocketbook injuries too speculative.

Judicial Watch submits that the Seventh Circuit’s decision “is wrong and dangerous:”

It is wrong because candidates have standing to challenge the rules that govern their elections, especially when their merits theory (which must be credited for standing purposes) is that the challenged rule produces an inaccurate final tally. At a minimum, the candidate has standing when (as here) he plausibly alleges that the challenged rule will harm his electoral prospects and reduce his bank balance because he needs to pay campaign staff an extra two weeks. And the decision is dangerous because it forces judges to play political prognosticators, skews standing rules to favor certain kinds of candidates, and funnels election disputes to the worst possible context—namely, after the election where judges are asked to declare political winners. This Court should reverse.

Judicial Watch states that Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the Illinois law:

At the very least, Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the Illinois ballot-receipt deadline here, as a host of diverse amici confirm. Congressman Bost plausibly alleged a substantial risk that counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day will harm his electoral prospects both by risking electoral defeat and reducing his margin of victory. The plausibility of those allegations was amply reinforced by the Illinois Democratic Party’s attempted intervention and voting and litigation patterns nationwide.  And he has also plausibly alleged a classic pocketbook injury because he expended additional campaign funds as a direct result of the state’s extended deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.  Here too, the notion that an election artificially extended a fortnight costs more than one that ends on Election Day hardly strains credulity. The state’s contrary arguments lack merit.

In its previous Supreme Court brief, Judicial Watch states:

Federal law sets the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the federal Election Day. 

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Candidates have an obvious interest in the lawfulness and fairness of the rules that govern the elections into which they pour their time and resources. They also have an obvious interest “in ensuring that the final vote tally accurately reflects the legally valid votes cast.”

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Candidates pour enormous resources into running for election and have an obvious interest in the rules that dictate how long their races will last and how the ballots will be counted. They also have a distinct interest “in ensuring that the final vote tally accurately reflects the legally valid votes cast.”

“This is a historic challenge to the outrageous practice of states counting votes days and weeks after Election Day,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch is a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of its work, Judicial Watch assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.

Judicial Watch in August 2025 filed a brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, opposing the State of Mississippi’s attempt to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision, which struck down a law allowing ballots received after Election Day to be counted.

Federal courts for Oregon, California and Illinois have ruled that Judicial Watch’s lawsuits may proceed against those states to force them to clean their voter rolls.

Judicial Watch announced in May that its work led to the removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.

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The post Judicial Watch Files Reply Brief to Supreme Court in Historic Illinois Election Integrity Case appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/illinois-election-integrity-case/