South Carolina's Over-65 Mail Ballot Preference Falls

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down a South Carolina law that let every registered voter aged 65 or older vote by mail automatically, while younger voters could do so only if they met narrower qualifying criteria. The court held in Grant v. Belangia that the arrangement violates the 26th Amendment, which bars denying or abridging the right to vote on account of age for citizens 18 and older.

The decision does not settle the law. It creates a three-way split among federal appeals courts: the Fourth Circuit now reads the amendment broadly, while the Fifth and Seventh Circuits have previously ruled against similar challenges to Texas and Indiana absentee-voting laws. Because the Supreme Court has never interpreted the 26th Amendment in depth and because circuit splits often attract its review, the Court is now a likely candidate to decide the amendment's meaning for the first time.

The partisan stakes are unusually direct. Mail voting expanded sharply in 2020, many Democratic-leaning voters adopted it, and Donald Trump campaigned against it. As a result, Democrats are now more likely than Republicans to cast mailed ballots, meaning rules that make mail voting easier are generally seen as benefiting Democrats at the margin, while restrictions are favored by Republican legal efforts.

A related Supreme Court signal came in Watson v. Republican National Committee (2026). There, a 5-4 majority rejected the GOP's claim that federal law requires late-arriving mailed ballots to be thrown out, but four justices would have accepted it. That narrow margin, combined with the current three-way circuit conflict, means the Court's eventual 26th Amendment reading could determine how much discretion states have to favor older voters in absentee balloting.

The Three-Way Read of the 26th Amendment and the Partisan Stakes

The Fourth Circuit's Broad Anti-Discrimination Reading

Grant treats the 26th Amendment as a wide ban on age-differentiated voting access. Its reasoning rests on the phrase "denied or abridged," which also appears in the 15th and 19th Amendments. The court pointed to South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), where the Supreme Court said the 15th Amendment invalidates voting procedures that are discriminatory on their face or in practice. Under that logic, if a 70-year-old voter may cast a ballot by mail, a 19-year-old voter should have the same option.

Why the Fifth and Seventh Circuits Took a Narrower Path

The Seventh Circuit has rejected the idea that mail-ballot limits alone deny the franchise, citing older precedent that voters who cannot vote absentee may still vote by other means. Its standard is higher: age-based distinctions are unconstitutional only when they impose a sufficiently "onerous" or "material" requirement, and an in-person voting option can be enough to satisfy that test. The Fifth Circuit has used a different baseline: a law "abridges" voting only when it makes voting more difficult than before the challenged law was enacted, drawing on Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (2000).

What the Watson 5-4 Split Signals

The Supreme Court's behavior in Watson is the clearest current clue. The Republican Party argued in that case that federal statutes dating to 1845 barred counting ballots mailed before Election Day but arriving afterward, even though states have counted such ballots in practice and Justice Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion noted that several federal laws assume states decide the question. Four justices still voted to limit late-arriving ballots. That suggests a narrow reading of the 26th Amendment may need only one more vote from the current 6-3 conservative majority, although the Fourth Circuit's textual argument gives the five Watson majority justices a plausible path to rule the other way.

The Partisan Geometry of Mail Voting

The legal text is being fought within an electoral landscape where mail-ballot access is no longer neutral. The evidence is that Democrats are now more likely than Republicans to vote by mail, making age-based mail-voting rules a partisan lever. Democrats are likely to urge an expansive interpretation of the 26th Amendment, while Republican litigants are likely to defend state discretion to keep older-voter mail options and impose different rules on everyone else. That is why the eventual definition of "abridged" matters far beyond the South Carolina statute.

What Election Officials, Parties and Voters Should Prepare For

For the officials and organizations affected, the Fourth Circuit's decision changes the baseline in the Fourth Circuit unless and until the Supreme Court or an en banc court intervenes.

  • South Carolina election officials: Prepare to administer mail-ballot access without age as the differentiator, because the Grant decision currently controls the state's federal appellate circuit.
  • State legislators in Fourth Circuit states: Review any statute that gives voters 65 and older easier mail-ballot access than younger voters; the Fourth Circuit has now classified that unequal access as a 26th Amendment violation.
  • Democratic and Republican party committees: Budget for Supreme Court review of the 26th Amendment, since a three-way circuit split is a well-established certiorari trigger; do not assume the five-justice Watson majority will automatically produce a broad pro-mail-voting ruling.
  • Voters under 65 in South Carolina: If the state does not obtain a stay or reversal, they should be eligible to apply for mail ballots on the same terms as older voters; confirm the state election agency's updated eligibility instructions before relying on a mailed ballot.