After arguments in a major Supreme Court case regarding mail-in ballots, the Republican National Committee is still involved in 120 election integrity lawsuits across 30 states.
Going into the midterm elections, the four priority areas for the committee are voter ID, securing mail-in voting, stopping noncitizens from voting, and holding states accountable for their failures to keep accurate voter rolls, RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told The Daily Signal.
“We are for common sense and reasonableness,” Gruters said in an interview. “The only people opposed to these measures are trying to gain an unfair advantage. They see weaknesses in the system they want to cultivate and make it easy to cheat.”
Gruters, also serving as a Florida state senator, calls his state the “gold standard” after improving elections in the wake of the 2000 recount.
“Florida has two time zones and 67 counties with different election supervisors. But we are able to get results on election night,” Gruters said.
Here’s a look at the key election law topics to watch in 2026.
1. Mail-In Ballot Verification
On Monday, a Supreme Court majority seemed skeptical about counting mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day. The RNC was the lead plaintiff in the case with Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson as the defendant.
The RNC supported Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., with an amicus brief in a separate challenge that potentially provides a glimpse of how the court might rule in the Mississippi case.
Bost challenged an Illinois law allowing mail ballots arriving up to 14 days after Election Day to be counted. The high court only decided to give Bost standing to sue the state.
“We want Democrats to stop counting ballots after Election Day, when they see how many more votes they need because they are behind,” Gruters said.
In another matter related to mail-in voting, the party in February filed a petition asking justices to hear the Eakin v. Adams County Board of Elections case out of Pennsylvania to enforce mail-in ballot laws.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Pennsylvania can’t require residents to date their mail ballots after state Democrats sued, alleging the dates were too burdensome for voters.
The Democratic National Committee did not respond to inquiries for this story.
2. Proof of Citizenship for Registration
The RNC is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Arizona to enforce a proof-of-citizenship law for voter registration.
In 2004, Arizona voters approved requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. Arizona’s 2022 election integrity law allows state officials to verify citizenship and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. In August 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Arizona to enforce the 2022 law.
However, in a separate case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided in February 2025 with the Democratic National Committee and left-leaning voting group Mi Familia Vota, Spanish for “my family votes,” to block key provisions of Arizona’s 2022 law.
On Thursday, Honest Elections Project, the Center for Election Confidence, and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to review that case.
The brief argues the 9th Circuit overreached in a decision that, if allowed to stand, would effectively prevent states from removing noncitizens, minors, and fake names from voting rolls. It also argues in favor of Arizona safeguards on mail-in voting.
“The Supreme Court should take this case and restore Arizona’s common sense election rules and prevent this judicial overreach from doing any further damage to election integrity,” Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project, said in a statement about the brief.
3. Partisan Gerrymandering
In February, the RNC sued to stop the Democrat redrawing of congressional maps in Virginia.
On April 21, voters will decide whether to temporarily suspend the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission.
If approved, the new map would take Virginia from six Democrat members and five Republicans in the U.S. House to 10 heavily Democrat House districts and one majority Republican district.
The lawsuit argues the state constitution requires constitutional amendments to be approved by the state legislature and submitted to voters no sooner than 90 days after final passage. The complaint also says the ballot language that the new map is to “restore fairness” is deceptive.
The Virginia Election Commission didn’t respond to an inquiry for this story.
4. Balance for Election Workers
In 2024, the RNC successfully sued the Detroit Election Commission for failing to have an equal number of Republican and Democrat poll workers.
In March, the RNC sued the Board of Elections in Bergen County, New Jersey, for records on poll workers assigned to early voting locations for the November 2025 gubernatorial election.
Gruters noted more than a dozen other New Jersey counties turned over these basic public records requested under the state’s public records laws, but Bergen County has refused.
The Bergen County Board of Elections did not respond to an inquiry for this story.
