We will hear argument this morning in case 24-1260 Watson v. Republican National Committee.

Mr. Stewart.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, states have broad power over elections.

Throughout our history, they've used that power to change how they hold elections.

Nowhere is that change more apparent than in Election Day itself.

Congress set the Federal Election Day in 1845.

At the time, everyone voted in person.

There was no absentee voting. There was no secret ballot.

Voters challenged each other's qualifications at the polls on Election Day, and States

received ballots on Election Day. Over time, states changed all those practices.

They did so as Congress extended Election Day to all federal offices. They've done so

ever since. No one claims that in setting the Federal Election Day, Congress blocked most

of those changes.

The dispute is whether Congress blocked just one change, allowing ballots cast by election day to be received after that day.

States have allowed that for over a century.

Congress has respected it.

No one challenged it until now.

The question is whether Congress in 1845 blocked that practice.

The answer is no. The election day statutes adopt a simple rule. States must make a final choice

of officers by Election Day. That is the plain meaning of an election. As this Court said in

United States v. Classic, from time immemorial, an election to public

office has been in point of substance no more and no less than the expression by qualified

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