January 15, 2026. This week, the Supreme Court ruled that political candidates hold a unique position allowing them to challenge election laws undermining voter integrity. In Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, the Court reversed a Seventh Circuit decision holding that Illinois Congressman Michael Bost and two other political candidates did not meet the requirements for Article III standing. The Supreme Court’s decision allows Bost to challenge Illinois’s permissive and improper law requiring election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.

Landmark Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief on behalf of Election Integrity Project California, Inc., supporting political candidates. Our brief argued that the federal candidates have standing to challenge Illinois election laws requiring officials to count mail-in ballots received within two weeks of election day, and the rules violate federal law.

Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Gorsuch, ruled that political candidates have standing to challenge improper election laws based on their legal interest in a fair and lawful electoral process: “Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns.”[1] To illustrate this point, the Court analogized Bost’s interest to a 100-meter race. “Each runner in a 100-meter dash, for example would suffer if the race were unexpectedly extended to 105 meters… [because] all would be deprived of the chance to compete for the prize that the rules define.”

Recognizing a candidate’s interest in “a fair process and accurate result” as sufficient for establishing standing, deviates from traditional requirements such as demonstrating a risk of losing the election, vote dilution, or increased costs.  This holding could therefore lead to an increase in timely election law challenges. The Court emphasizes that this new standard will prevent courts from becoming entangled in politics. Before this decision, courts would only entertain candidate challenges to election laws if the candidate could plausibly allege the law would increase the candidate’s chance of losing. Premising standing on a candidate’s risk of election loss “would convert Article III judges into political prognosticators and ‘invite[] findings on matters as to which neither judges nor anyone else can have any confidence.’” This presented a catch-22: basing a candidate’s standing on their risk of losing is impractical as it would push litigation to the eve of, or even after, elections, which risks voter confusion and undermines public confidence in elections.

Agreeing with the holding, Justice Barrett, joined by Justice Kagan, however, disagreed with the majority’s reasoning. According to Justice Barrett, Representative Bost has standing “because he suffered a traditional pocketbook injury, not because of his status as a candidate.” Justice Barrett cautioned that the Court’s creation of a “bespoke standing rule for candidates” departs from established precedent requiring that all litigants satisfy Article III’s traditional standing requirements and found no reason to afford special treatment for candidates. Drawing on precedent, she explained that the Court has never held candidates to a different standard and criticized the majority’s decision to venture away from the straightforward path to create a “novel” and unnecessary path forward—particularly in light of Bost’s concessions that ‘candidates could probably articulate their injury in terms of a pocketbook injury.’”

Justice Jackson authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Sotomayor. She labels the majority opinion a “dubious departure from settled law” that “disregards both the equal treatment of litigants and judicial restraint.” She says a candidate’s pocketbook should not grant standing to sue since plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing by choosing to make expenditures based on hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” Instead, Justice Jackson argues standing exists where candidates show a “substantial risk of harm” to their interest, i.e. “the risk of an election loss.” In interpreting fairness as grounds for candidate standing, Jackson accuses the majority of “ignor[ing] a core constitutional requirement while unnecessarily thrusting the Judiciary into the political arena.” Justice Jackson concludes that suffering from an unfair electoral process is a generalized harm unrecognized by precedent.

Although the legality of Illinois mail ballot collection law is still undecided, the Court’s decision is the first step toward reversing state election laws that threaten the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s electoral process and undermine public confidence in election outcomes. As Landmark continues to follow developments in this case, and possibly similar litigation across the country, Landmark remains committed to safe and fair elections conducted on the day federal law requires—not weeks later.