Appeals Court: South Carolina Mail Voting Bias Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court ruled South Carolina's senior-only no-excuse mail voting discriminates against younger voters in violation of the 26th Amendment.

On August 18, a three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that South Carolina's absentee voting law violates the 26th Amendment. The state generally requires mail voters to meet criteria such as being disabled, caring for a sick person, working, or being out of their county during voting periods — but voters 65 and older can vote by mail for any reason. The case, *Grant v. Belangia*, was brought in 2023 by younger Charleston residents, including parishioners of Charity Missionary Baptist Church of North Charleston, against the S.C. Election Commission after a district court initially dismissed their claim.

The ruling is a reversal of the usual pattern: courts are striking down a law that makes voting *easier* for seniors. Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote that the state 'allocates voting opportunities unequally based solely on age' by giving older voters unconditional mail access while conditioning it for younger voters on eligibility categories, documentation, and a rigid deadline. The decision directly conflicts with a 2022 Fifth Circuit ruling upholding a similar Texas law — a circuit split that Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who is working on the case, told the Post and Courier makes South Carolina an outlier among states with broad absentee voting.

The two circuits read the 26th Amendment differently. According to the ECIKS analysis, the Fifth Circuit held that easing voting for seniors did not make younger voters worse off than before, so no discrimination occurred; the Fourth Circuit held that unequal treatment between age groups is itself discriminatory, requiring age-neutral access. Plaintiffs' attorney Armand Derfner, a Charleston civil rights lawyer, told the Post and Courier the case likely will not affect the November 3 general election because courts avoid changing voting rules close to an election. The S.C. Elections Commission, which declined comment, noted absentee rules 'have not changed.'

More than 100,000 South Carolinians voted absentee in the 2024 general election, per the Post and Courier, making mail voting a 'big deal' even with the state's two weeks of in-person early voting. The remedy the district court chooses matters greatly: Fox News reports Judge Gregory instructed that either all voters get no-excuse absentee voting or none do. State Sen. Chip Campsen, who wrote the early voting law, told the Post and Courier that if forced to choose, the Legislature should scrap no-excuse mail voting entirely rather than expand it, calling universal mail voting the 'worst thing you could do' for election security.

The case returns to the district court to craft a remedy, but the state can still appeal to the full Fourth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, and legal observers expect the circuit split to eventually land at the high court, according to ECIKS. The ruling also landed in a shifting national landscape: the same week, the Supreme Court gave President Trump a procedural win on his mail-in voting limits, and Fox News reports federal agencies can now advance new ballot-mail standards and state citizenship-list efforts — with further litigation expected on both fronts heading into the midterms.

With midterm searches surging, the decision reshapes the legal map of mail voting just as the Trump administration presses new federal ballot rules. According to Fox News, the Supreme Court's recent 5-4 ruling upheld Mississippi's post-election-day counting of properly postmarked ballots, affirming broad state discretion over election procedures — discretion the South Carolina case now tests on age lines.