The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day should be counted, a case that could have repercussions for the 2026 midterm vote.The case involves a challenge by the Republican National Committee to a law in the southern state of Mississippi that allows ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days after Election Day.The ballots must be postmarked by Election Day.Around 30 US states have similar laws.Republican President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of mail-in ballots and has falsely claimed that they contributed to his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A federal judge ruled in favor of Mississippi but was overturned by an appeals court panel last year which said ballots must arrive by Election Day to be counted.The mail-in ballot case is one of a number of voting rights cases being heard by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court this term.The court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, heard arguments last month over the use of race to draw electoral districts.The Supreme Court is likely to deliver its rulings in the cases by the end of June, which would provide enough time for them to be applied to the November midterm elections.

The US Supreme Court on Monday heard the case of a devout Rastafarian who is seeking damages after his knee-length dreadlocks were forcibly shorn while he was in prison in Louisiana.Damon Landor is seeking permission to sue individual officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections for monetary damages for violating his religious rights.”Without damages, officials can literally treat the law like garbage,” Landor’s lawyer Zachary Tripp told the court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.Louisiana has acknowledged that the treatment of Landor by prison guards was “antithetical to religious freedom” and has amended its prison grooming policy.But the southern US state insists that federal law does not permit money damages against a state official sued in his individual capacity — an argument that appeared to gain traction Monday among a majority of the conservative justices.Landor, who had been growing his hair for nearly two decades, was serving the final three weeks of a five-month sentence for drug possession in 2020 when his hair was cut.He presented prison guards with a copy of a 2017 court ruling stating that Rastafarians should be allowed to keep their dreadlocks in line with their religious beliefs.A prison guard threw the document away and Landor was handcuffed to a chair and had his head shaved, according to court records.An appeals court condemned Landor’s “egregious” treatment but ruled that he is not eligible to sue individual prison officials for damages.Rastafarians let their hair grow, typically in dreadlocks, as part of their beliefs in the religion which originated in Jamaica and was popularized by the late reggae singer Bob Marley.The case unusually brought together legal advocates on both the left and the right.  The Supreme Court is generally hostile to approving damages actions against individual government officials but at the same time the right-leaning court has tended to side with the plaintiffs in religious liberty cases.