WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday revived a Republican challenge to a law that allows the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a target of President Donald Trump.
The high court majority ruled that candidates can sue over voting-counting rules, even if they haven't shown a clear effect on the outcome of the race.
“Win or lose, candidates suffer when the process departs from the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. The court didn't rule on late-arriving mail-in ballots themselves, but will hear another case on the broader issue this spring.
Requiring candidates to show that a rule could affect the outcome before challenging its legality risks court entanglement in elections during the high-pressure late stages of the process, Roberts wrote.
The court ruled 7-2 to grant Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and two other candidates a new day in court, though it didn't decide their underlying claim.
Two justices in the majority, Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan, said they would have allowed Boast to sue but not any candidate for office.
“I cannot join the Court’s creation of a bespoke standing rule for candidates. Elections are important, but so are many things in life,” Barrett wrote.
Two others, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, saying allowing any candidate to sue would “opens the floodgates to exactly the type of troubling election-related litigation the Court purportedly wants to avoid.”
Bost appealed after lower courts tossed out his suit, ruling he lacked legal standing because any ballots that arrived after election day had little impact on his lopsided win.
The state had argued that allowing the lawsuit would “cause chaos” with increased election litigation. Bost, on the the other hand, said vote-total considerations shouldn’t affect his ability to come to court.
The Illinois law allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they are received up to two weeks later. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long they are postmarked on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Trump administration weighed in to support Bost. The Republican president has asserted that late-arriving ballots and drawn-out electoral counts undermine confidence in elections.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
The Supreme Court is seen during oral arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge is considering whether to set aside a Trump administration order pausing construction on a major offshore wind farm for New York, which the developer says could mean the death of a project that’s 60% complete.
The Empire Wind project is designed to power more than 500,000 homes. Norwegian company Equinor said the project was in jeopardy due to the limited availability of specialized vessels, as well as heavy financial losses. It's one of five big offshore wind projects on the East Coast that the administration froze days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states have sued seeking to block the order.
The case was heard Wednesday by District Judge Carl J. Nichols, an appointee of President Donald Trump. Nichols plans to issue his decision Thursday.
The government filed their national security reasoning in secret for Nichols to review. The administration hasn’t publicly revealed specifics about those concerns, and at least one expert says the offshore projects were permitted following years of careful review that included the Department of Defense.
During the hearing, Nichols said the government’s main security concern seemed to be over operation of the wind turbines, not construction — a contention the government would later disagree with.
He also sharply questioned the government for not responding to key points in Empire Wind’s court filings, like the accusation the Trump administration didn’t follow the right procedures and acted arbitrarily.
“Your brief doesn’t even include the word arbitrary,” the judge said. When the government said they were still contesting Empire Wind’s arguments on these points, Nichols responded, “This is not the way we do things.”
Equinor’s hearing is the second of three for these legal challenges this week; on Monday, a judge ruled that a project serving Rhode Island and Connecticut could resume.
Trump has targeted offshore wind from his first days back in the White House, most recently calling wind farms “losers” that lose money, destroy the landscape and kill birds.
The administration's stance against offshore wind and renewable energy more broadly runs counter to dozens of other countries, and experts say the world needs a major buildout of renewable electricity to address climate change.
The global offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations. Nearly all of the new electricity added to the grid in 2024 was renewable.
The British government said Wednesday it secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in Europe’s largest offshore wind auction, enough clean electricity to power more than 12 million homes. It said that as Britain races to cut bills and meet growing energy demand, the price for offshore wind agreed to in the auction is 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating a new gas power plant.
Molly Morris, Equinor’s senior vice president overseeing Empire Wind, said federal officials haven't given any explanation of the national security concerns or how to mitigate them.
A specialized heavy lift vessel, Heerema’s Sleipnir, must begin lifting the topside to the project’s offshore substation off the transport ship and onto its foundation because the Sleipnir is scheduled to depart by Feb. 1 for other commitments, Morris said. The topside weighs more than 3,000 tons and there are few specialized offshore wind installation ships in the world. Equinor’s limited liability company has spent about $4 billion to develop and construct the project.
“We have been clear and consistent that we are ready to address any additional security concerns that were not already addressed through our lengthy engagement with various defense agencies,” Morris said.
Monday's hearing was in the same federal court, with Danish energy company Orsted prevailing. A judge ruled that work on its project, called Revolution Wind, can resume while the administration considers ways to mitigate its national security concerns. Revolution Wind is nearly complete.
After that hearing, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the pause is meant to protect the national security of the American people, and “we look forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
The Trump administration paused leases for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. New York’s attorney general sued the Trump administration on Friday over Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind. The administration previously halted work on both Empire Wind and Revolution Wind.
McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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Blades and turbine bases for offshore wind sit at a staging area at New London State Pier, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in New London, Conn. (AP Photo/Matt O'Brien)
FILE - Wind turbines operate at Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - A sign for the company Equinor is displayed on Oct. 28, 2020, in Fornebu, Norway. (Håkon Mosvold Larsen/NTB Scanpix via AP, File)
