Judicial Watch Statement on Supreme Court Victory Affirming Broad Candidate Standing to Bring Election Court Challenges
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton responded today to the Supreme Court of the United States 7-2 decision in favor of granting standing in a historic case filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who were before the court to vindicate their standing in court to an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day:
This is the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation. Too many courts have denied candidates the standing to challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous ballots that arrive after Election Day. American citizens concerned about election integrity should celebrate this Supreme Court victory. I thank Judicial Watch’s legion of supporters and our election law team that helped achieve this historic result.
The Supreme Court decision broadly affirmed candidate standing to bring election ballot disputes to federal court:
Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns. Their interest extends to the integrity of the election — and the democratic process by which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent.
“I’m thankful the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled strongly in our favor and concluded we have standing to challenge Illinois’ unconstitutional law allowing vote-by-mail ballots to be counted two weeks after Election Day,” said Congressman Bost. This is a critically important step forward in the fight for election integrity and fair elections. I look forward to continuing to pursue this case as we navigate the next stages of the legal process. It’s vitally important that we restore the people’s trust in our elections.”
Judicial Watch originally filed suit challenging Illinois’ election law on behalf of Bost and two presidential electors on May 25, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lower court dismissed the claim for lack of standing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the lower court ruling in August 2023 (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)).
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.
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.
Paul Clement, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, represented 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.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court granted review in a landmark election integrity case brought on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. The case seeks to uphold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which struck down a Mississippi law unconstitutionally allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day.
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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