Judicial Watch: Supreme Court Oral Argument on Wednesday in Historic Illinois Election Integrity Case

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that oral argument will be held on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, in the Supreme Court of the United States in a historic 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 allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day (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 case concerns whether Bost and the electors have standing to challenge Illinois’ counting of ballots that arrive after the Election Day deadlines set by federal law. The Election Day lawsuit was initially filed on May 25, 2022. A lower court dismissed the claim for lack of standing, which was upheld by a split 2-1 panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

“This is the most important Supreme Court election law case in a generation. Too many courts have denied candidates their right to challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous act of counting ballots that arrive AFTER Election Day. American citizens concerned about election integrity will tune in closely to Judicial Watch’s Supreme Court arguments Wednesday,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch’s September brief to the High Court 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. 

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 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.”

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 across the country, among other achievements.

Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.

Paul Clement, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, is representing Congressman Bost and the electors with Judicial Watch before the Supreme Court. Clement is former solicitor general under President George W. Bush from 2005-2008 and is widely regarded as among the top Supreme Court litigators in the country.

T. Russell Nobile, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, is part of Judicial Watch’s voting integrity efforts and focuses on campaign and voting issues, civil rights issues, constitutional law, official misconduct by public institutions and officials, and other issues. 

Eric Lee is an attorney at Judicial Watch, where he focuses on enforcing federal and state laws that promote transparency and integrity in the electoral process. Eric graduated with his B.A. from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and received his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. He is licensed to practice in California, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and in federal courts in Illinois and Colorado.

Judicial Watch recently filed a brief to the U.S. 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 in Oregon, California and Illinois recently ruled that Judicial Watch’s lawsuits against those states may proceed forcing 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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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/scotus-election-integrity-case/