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Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Rebekah Willett, Professor in the Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Many adults are breathing a sigh of relief as the 6-7 meme fades away as one of the biggest kid-led global fads of 2025.

In case you managed to miss it, 6-7 is a slang term – spoken aloud as “six seven” – accompanied by an arm gesture that mimics someone weighing something in their hands.

It has no real meaning, but it spawned countless videos across various platforms and infiltrated schools and homes across the globe. Shouts of “6-7” disrupted classrooms and rained down at sporting events. Think pieces proliferated.

For the most part, adults responded with mild annoyance and confusion.

But as media scholars who study children’s culture, we didn’t view the meme with bewilderment or exasperation. Instead, we thought back to our own childhoods on three different continents – and all the secret languages we spoke.

There was Pig Latin. The cool “S” doodled on countless worksheets and bathroom stalls. Forming an L-shape with our thumb and index finger to insult someone. Remixing the words of hand-clapping games from previous generations.

6-7 is only the latest example of these long-standing practices – and though the gesture might not mean much to adults, it says a lot about children’s play, their social lives and their desire for power.

The irresistible allure of 6-7

You can see this longing for power in classic play like spying on adults and in games like “king of the hill.”

A typical school day involves a tight schedule of adult-directed activities; kids have little time or space for agency.

But during those in-between times when children are able to stealthily evade adult surveillance – on playgrounds, on the internet and even when stuck at home during the pandemic – children’s culture can thrive. In these spaces, they can make the rules. They set the terms. And if it confuses adults, all the better.

As 6-7 went viral, teachers complained that random outbursts by their students were interrupting their lessons. Some started avoiding asking any kind of question that might result in an answer of 67. The trend migrated from schools to sports arenas and restaurants: In-N-Out Burger ended up banning the number 67 from their ticket ordering system.

The meaninglessness of 6-7 made it easy to create a sense of inclusion and exclusion – and to annoy adults, who strained to decipher hidden meanings. In the U.S., siblings and friends dressed as the numbers 6-7 for Halloween. And in Australia, it was rumored that houses with 6-7 in their address were going for astronomical prices.

Remixing games and rhymes

Since before World War I, historians have documented children’s use of secret languages like “back slang,” which happens when words are phonetically spoken backwards. And nonsense words and phrases have long proliferated in children’s culture: Recent examples include “booyah,” “skibidi” and “talk to the hand.”

6-7 also coincides with a long history of children revising, adapting and remixing games and rhymes.

For example, in our three countries – the U.S., Australia and South Korea – we’ve encountered endless variations of the game of “tag.” Sometimes the chasers pretend to be the dementors from Harry Potter. Other times the chasers have pretended to be the COVID-19 virus. Or we’ll see them incorporate their immediate surroundings, like designating playground equipment as “home” or “safe.”

Similar games can spread among children around the world. In South Korea, “Mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida” – which roughly translates to “The rose of Sharon has bloomed,” a reference to South Korea’s national flower – is similar to the game “Red Light, Green Light” in English-speaking countries. In the game “Hwang-ma!,” South Korean children in the early aughts shouted the word and playfully struck a peer upon seeing a rare, gold-colored car, a game similar to “Punch Buggy” and “Slug Bug” in the U.S. and Australia.

Historically, children have reworked rhymes and clapping games to draw on popular culture of the day. “Georgie Best, Superstar,” sung to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” was a popular chant on U.K. playgrounds in the 1970s that celebrated the legendary soccer player George Best. And a variation of the clapping game “I went to a Chinese Restaurant” included the lyrics “My name is, Elvis Presley, girls are sexy, Sitting on the back seat, drinking Pepsi.”

Making space for children’s culture

One reason 6-7 became so popular is the low barrier to entry: Saying “6-7” and doing the accompanying hand movement is easy to pick up and translate into different cultural contexts. The simplicity of the meme allowed young Korean children to repeat the phrase in English. And deaf children have participated by signing the meme.

Because the social worlds of children now exist across a range of online spaces, 6-7 has been able to seamlessly spread and evolve. On the gaming platform Roblox, for example, children can create avatars that resemble 6-7 and play games that feature the numbers.

The strange words, nonsensical games and creative play of your childhood might seem ridiculous today. But there’s real value in these hidden worlds.

With or without access to the internet, children will continue to transform language and games to suit their needs – which, yes, includes getting under the skin of adults.

A great deal of attention is given to the omnipresence of digital technologies in children’s lives, but we think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the way children are using these technologies to innovate and connect in ways both creative and mundane.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The 6-7 craze offered a brief window into the hidden world of children – https://theconversation.com/the-6-7-craze-offered-a-brief-window-into-the-hidden-world-of-children-272327

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

The U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection contains 100 sculptures: two luminaries from each state. They include many familiar figures, such as Helen Keller, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan and Amelia Earhart. There are a few from the Colonial era, including founders such as Samuel Adams and George Washington.

Some will also be represented in the Garden of American Heroes that the Trump administration plans to build. The monument will eventually have 250 statues, and the administration has proposed a list of names. Among the figures in the Capitol who did not make the cut is Po’pay, a 17th-century Native American leader from what is now New Mexico. The inscription on his statue in the Capitol identifies him as “Holy Man – Farmer – Defender.”

As a historian of early America, I see Po’pay’s absence in the to-be-built shrine as unfortunate – but not surprising. After all, he led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: the most successful Indigenous rebellion against colonization in the history of what became the United States. He and his followers sought political independence and religious freedom, issues central to Americans’ sense of themselves.

Spanish conquest of New Mexico

Religious movements and figures played a central role in early American history. For example, as I have frequently written, Thanksgiving is linked to Protestant religious dissenters we call Pilgrims and Puritans. American myth tells us that those hearty souls braved an ocean crossing and a contest with the “wilderness,” in the words of the Plymouth colony’s governor, William Bradford. They did so, according to our legends, to pursue their faith – though the historical record reveals that economics also drove their decision to migrate.

Po’pay, a Tewa religious leader born around 1630, did not have to cross an ocean to prove his commitment to his faith. Instead, in the face of oppression, he wanted to restore the traditions and practices of his homeland: Ohkay Owingeh, which Spanish colonizers renamed San Juan Pueblo, in what is now New Mexico. The Tewa are one of many Pueblo peoples living in the Southwest.

Pueblo lands had witnessed spasms of brutal violence since Spanish colonizers arrived at the end of the 16th century. In 1598, a group of Spanish soldiers arrived in Acoma, a famous Pueblo city known to the Spanish through earlier reports from the explorer Francisco Coronado. The oldest settlement within the territorial boundaries of the United States, Acoma has been occupied almost continuously since the 12th century.

At the end of the 16th century, conflict erupted when residents of Acoma refused the soldiers’ demands for food. Locals killed the commander and around a dozen others. In response, the provincial governor, Juan de Oñate, consulted with Franciscan priests and then ordered a counterattack.

The Spanish killed at least 800 residents – 300 women and children and 500 men – and perhaps as many as 1,500. In a subsequent trial, the colonizers ruled that the people of Acoma had violated their “obligations” to the Spanish king. Judges sold almost 600 survivors into slavery and amputated one foot from each man 25 or over.

In the years that followed, Spanish soldiers captured Indigenous people across the Southwest and sold them into slavery, too. For Pueblos and other Indigenous peoples, the intertwined military, political and spiritual invasions threatened seemingly every aspect of their lives.

For crown and cross

The violence at Acoma did not dissuade Spaniards eager to migrate. Around 1608, horse- and oxen-drawn carriages traveled into the territory to build a new capital, which the Spanish called Santa Fe. In addition to ferrying soldiers and farming families, those wagons also carried Franciscan friars, crucifixes, Bibles and other items the brothers needed to promote Catholicism among those they deemed to be heathens.

Over the ensuing decades, periodic conflicts pitted Indigenous peoples of various pueblos against the colonizers. Nevertheless, Spaniards erected churches in Native communities, and Franciscans often claimed that many Indigenous people welcomed their presence.

Like other Christian missionaries in the Western Hemisphere, Franciscans of the day argued that Indigenous peoples needed to abandon their traditional religions as part of the process of conversion. But many in New Mexico retained older ways. They continued to pray in chambers known as “kivas” and communicate with their deities: Pos’e yemu, for example, whom Tewas believed had the power to bring rain.

In 1675, colonial authorities accused Indigenous religious leaders of killing Franciscans with sorcery. They rounded up suspects, executed three and beat others. They also destroyed kivas. Among those imprisoned and then released was Po’pay.

Pueblo Revolt

The sting of the lash scarred more than human flesh in Pueblo communities. It fed resentment against colonists. Many of the Pueblos focused their animosity on the clerical authorities who justified the brutality of the Spanish conquest.

As the decade came to a close, the region was gripped in a drought that reduced supplies of food and water, pushing Indigenous communities’ frustrations to a tipping point. Po’pay led a rebellion that reached across Pueblo communities, saying that he was following guidance from Pos’e yemu.

On Aug. 11, 1680, Po’pay and his followers unleashed a reign of terror against Spanish soldiers, colonial farmers and Catholic churches. They systematically destroyed religious buildings, whipped statues and crucifixes, abused priests before killing them, and rendered mission bells silent by removing their clappers or drowning them in water. Far outnumbering their opponents, the Pueblos chased the colonizers to Santa Fe and then drove them out of the region.

Po’pay, according to a Native witness named Josephe, reveled in the moment, saying, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is dead.” Historians believe that the attack killed at least 400 colonists and soldiers, or about 1 in 6 Spaniards in New Mexico. There had been 33 friars in the province before the uprising. Only 12 survived.

Against kings and coercion

In the aftermath of the Pueblos’ military victory, Po’pay led an effort to eradicate the last vestiges of Catholicism in New Mexico. He ordered that Natives who had converted needed to scrub themselves with yucca branches to remove the stain of baptism. While some churches survived, including San Estevan del Rey Mission Church at Acoma, most of the Spanish friars who had led services in them lay dead.

From 1675 to 1680, the European colonial project came under dire threat across North America. In New England, Metacom’s, or King Philip’s, War – waged between Indigenous groups and English settlers – destroyed scores of communities in one of the most destructive conflicts, measured on a per capita basis, in American history. In Virginia, a dissident hinterland landowner named Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt by aggrieved Colonists that torched the English provincial capital at Jamestown.

In this violent era, as I describe in a forthcoming book, Po’pay became one of the most consequential figures on the continent – and the embodiment of the American idea that people should be free from oppressive rulers and free, too, to practice their faith as they see fit.

Po’pay died in 1688. Four years later, Spanish colonizers returned to New Mexico and once again set out to bring the vast desert and its determined residents back under their control.

But they never erased the legacy of Po’pay, who remains a cultural hero for his defiant stand against king and cross.

Peter C. Mancall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The 17th-century Pueblo leader who fought for independence from colonial rule – long before the American Revolution – https://theconversation.com/the-17th-century-pueblo-leader-who-fought-for-independence-from-colonial-rule-long-before-the-american-revolution-270361

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on Jan. 7, 2026, that it will cease all operations effective May 3. The daily newspaper, founded in 1786, has been the city’s paper of record for nearly a century and is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

Block Communications, the company that owns the Post-Gazette, says the paper has lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” during the past two decades. The shuttering of the Post-Gazette comes after a three-year strike by newspaper employees who were asking management for better wages and working conditions. The strike ended in November 2025 after an appellate court ruled in favor of the union workers. The Post-Gazette was found to have violated federal labor law by cutting health care benefits and failing to bargain in good faith. Then, on Jan. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the paper, stating that the Post-Gazette was required to adjust its health insurance coverage for union members. Hours later, Block Communications announced that the paper would shut down.

Victor Pickard, an expert on the U.S. media and its role in democracy, was born and raised just outside Pittsburgh. He talked to Cassandra Stone, The Conversation U.S. Pittsburgh editor, about what the closing means for local journalism and democracy.

Newspapers have been in decline for decades. How significant is this closure?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has long been a vital part of the local community throughout western Pennsylvania. This would be the first major metropolitan newspaper closing since the Tampa Tribune shut its doors in 2016, and it’s a devastating blow to residents in that entire area of the state. Block Communications also closed down the Pittsburgh City Paper, which is an alt-weekly newspaper in Pittsburgh, in January 2026. The loss of the Post-Gazette will likely create a major gap in local news coverage.

How much did the labor strike from 2022-2025 affect the newspaper’s profitability?

I wouldn’t pin the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s loss of profitability on the strike – which was legitimate and did have a profound impact – as much as on the structural forces affecting nearly all local newspapers at this time.

Throughout the country, local journalism increasingly is no longer a profitable enterprise. The core business model of being reliant on advertising revenue has irreparably collapsed, and subscriptions rarely generate enough financial support.

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. has lost about 40% of its local newspapers and about 75% of the jobs in newspaper journalism, according to a 2025 report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. A study published last year by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack shows that in 2002, there were roughly 40 journalists per 100,000 people in the United States. Today, it’s down to about eight journalists.

This evisceration of local journalism leads to ever-expanding news deserts across the country, where tens of millions of Americans are living in areas with little or no local news media whatsoever.

How might this affect local civic engagement and democracy in Pittsburgh?

Democracy requires a free and functional press system. When a local newspaper closes, fewer people vote and get involved in local politics, and corruption and polarization increase.

Without local news outlets, people often turn to national news or even “pink slime” news sites. These sites masquerade as official local media institutions but in fact are often propagandistic outlets that amplify misinformation and disinformation.

With the retreat of newspapers, people are receiving less high-quality news and information. This means that people living in these areas are less knowledgeable about politics. They often don’t know who’s running for office in their communities, or what their political platforms are, and there’s just less civic engagement in general.

Most Americans have 24/7 access to unlimited news and information through their social media feeds, including local news influencers. Does this counteract the loss of local reporting?

I think an important distinction needs to be made between carefully reported and fact-checked articles and what seems like a glut of information at our fingertips at all times. Beyond the surface-level appearance of countless news sites, social media reports offer relatively few new facts that have been borne out of rigorous reporting.

You could say that Americans are living in a new golden age of political discourse, where we constantly see a churn of social media-based forms of expression. But that’s not necessarily journalism.

When we’re talking about the collapse of newspapers and fewer newspaper journalists working their beats, it would be an entirely different story if that journalism were being replaced by other institutions, by influencers, by podcasters. But many of those outlets are amplifying opinion-based commentary and punditry.

That’s not the same thing as reporting that adheres to journalistic norms and introduces new information into the world. Losing this kind of knowledge production hurts communities everywhere – from small towns and rural areas to major cities like Pittsburgh.

Victor Pickard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s closure exposes a growing threat to democracy – https://theconversation.com/why-the-pittsburgh-post-gazettes-closure-exposes-a-growing-threat-to-democracy-272992

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Habibeh Khoshbouei, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Florida

Methamphetamine doesn’t just spike levels of the pleasure-inducing hormone dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain – it also provokes damaging brain inflammation through similar mechanisms.

Meth is addictive because it increases dopamine levels in the brain. While researchers know that meth triggers brain inflammation, whether the immune system also affects the brain’s reward system during drug use has been unclear.

Our work focuses on how dopamine is regulated in the body and the reward pathways of the brain. Dopamine shapes motivation, movement, learning and cognition, and its disruption is linked to a range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including substance use disorders, ADHD, autism and Parkinson’s disease.

By identifying that meth elevates levels of a key immune molecule that drives both neuroinflammation and dopamine release, our recent findings offer a potential target to treat meth addiction and reduce relapse.

Dopamine and inflammation

To study how meth and the immune system interact and regulate dopamine levels, we measured the electrical and chemical activity of dopamine neurons in mouse brain specimens treated with either meth or an immune molecule called TNF-α. This molecule is known to induce inflammation in the body.

We found that meth and TNF‑α converge in a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, a key reward hub that produces dopamine. In this area of the mouse brain, TNF‑α increased dopamine levels and neuronal activity in similar ways as meth.

These effects depended on two proteins that act as gatekeepers to control the activity of dopamine neurons and dopamine levels. Blocking these gatekeepers disrupted the effects of TNF-α and meth on dopamine neurons.

Our team’s 2025 review of the research on this field adds broader context to our findings: Meth elevates TNF‑α in the brain and the body, and TNF‑α is known to weaken the blood‑brain barrier that regulates which substances can access the brain. If TNF‑α loosens the blood-brain barrier, inflammatory molecules from the blood – as well as disease-causing pathogens – may have increased access to the reward circuitry of the brain, potentially worsening neuronal damage and dysfunction over time.

Importantly, we found that blocking TNF‑α can reduce dopamine release and blunt meth’s effects on dopamine neurons.

Improving treatments for addiction

There is currently no medication for meth addiction that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Our findings highlight the role of the immune system in the brain’s reward circuitry, pointing to new drug targets that could potentially lead to better treatments.

This direction of research is especially compelling because multiple therapies targeting TNF‑α are already FDA‑approved for use to treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. But these drugs can have serious side effects and require careful study before they can be repurposed for addiction.

It’s unclear whether modulating TNF-α levels can change drug-seeking, craving and relapse‑like behaviors. Further research on the molecular mechanisms behind how TNF-α affects dopamine and the immune system can offer new treatment strategies for meth addiction.

Habibeh Khoshbouei receives funding from NIH grants.

Marcelo Febo receives funding from NIH.

– ref. Meth inflames and stimulates your brain through similar pathways – new research offers potential avenue to treat meth addiction – https://theconversation.com/meth-inflames-and-stimulates-your-brain-through-similar-pathways-new-research-offers-potential-avenue-to-treat-meth-addiction-272484

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Martin Elvis, Senior Astrophysicist, Smithsonian Institution

After a string of dramatic failures, the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX had a fully successful test on Oct. 13, 2025. A couple more test flights, and SpaceX plans to launch it into orbit.

A month later, a rival rocket company, Blue Origin, flew its almost-as-large New Glenn rocket all the way to orbit and sent spacecraft on their way to Mars.

While these successful flights are exciting news for future missions to the Moon as well as other planets, I’ve argued for several years that these superheavy-lift rockets can also boost research in my own specialty, astronomy – the study of stars and galaxies far beyond our solar system – to new heights.

Taking the broad view

Why do I say that? Astronomy needs space. Getting above the atmosphere allows telescopes to detect vastly more of the electromagnetic spectrum than visible light alone. At these heights, telescopes can detect light at much longer and shorter wavelengths, which are otherwise blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.

To get an idea of how that has enriched astronomy, imagine listening to someone play the piano, but only in one octave. The music would sound much richer if they used the full keyboard.

With the broader spectrum in view, astronomers can see objects in the sky that are much colder than stars, but also objects that are far hotter.

How much cooler and hotter? The hottest stars you can see in visible light are about 10 times hotter than the coolest. With the whole infrared-to-X-ray spectrum, the temperatures that come into view can be 1,000 times colder or 1,000 times hotter than regular stars.

Scientists have had nearly 50 years of access to the full light spectrum with sets of increasingly powerful telescopes. Alas, this access has come at an ever-increasing cost, too. The newest telescope is the spectacular James Webb Space Telescope, which cost about US$10 billion and detects a portion of the infrared spectrum. At that forbidding price, NASA can’t afford to match Webb across the spectrum by building its full infrared and X-ray siblings.

We’ll have to wait a long time even for one more. The estimated date to launch the next “Great Observatory” is a distant 2045 and may be later. The range of notes astronomers can play will shrink, along with our views of the universe.

Escaping the trap with heavy-lift vehicles

These new rockets give us a chance to escape this trap. For the same cost, they can send about 10 times more mass to orbit, and they have bodies about twice as wide, compared with the rockets that have been in use for decades.

Mass matters because telescopes contain heavy mirrors, and the bigger the mirror, the better they work. For example, building Webb’s large mirror meant finding a way to make a superb mirror that was 10 times lighter in weight per square meter than the already lightweight Hubble mirror. The engineers found a solution that was technically sweet but financially costly.

Similarly, the size of the rocket’s body matters because to fit Webb’s 21-foot-diameter mirror (6.5 meters) into the 13-foot-diameter body (4 meters) of its ride, the Ariane V rocket, it had to fold up like origami for launch. Normally, space missions try to avoid any moving parts, but for Webb they had no choice.

Again, the result was a technical triumph, but the complexity introduced over 300 places where one mistake could have ended the mission. Each one of the over 300 locations had to be 300 times less likely to fail than if there had been only one, pumping up the design, manufacturing and testing requirements – and inflating the cost.

The larger, wider Starship and New Glenn rockets mean that building a Webb-like space telescope today could be done with none of the origami-like folding and unfolding, with their attendant risks, and so be much cheaper.

New ideas

This opportunity is being seized by at least three teams. First, a proposed deep infrared telescope called Origins would take advantage of superheavy lift. Scientists at Caltech are studying a potential smaller version called Prima.

Second, an X-ray telescope that can take pictures as sharp as Webb – with a sensitivity to match – would likely use thicker and heavier mirrors than imagined just a few years ago.

And third, a study published in 2025 proposes a very low-frequency radio telescope, GO-LoW, that also takes advantage of using more mass. GO-LoW would be made of 100,000 tiny telescopes, so mass production savings kick in too.

All three of these telescopes would be easily 100 times more sensitive than their predecessors and at least comparable to Webb in their own bands of the spectrum.

It would be ideal if engineers could get these telescopes down to half the cost of a large observatory like Webb. Then, for the same price, NASA could fly two new Great Observatories instead of resigning itself to building one. If it could get the cost down to a third, it could potentially fly a full spectrum-spanning set.

Big challenges, big payoff

Of course, a lot could go wrong. For one thing, these rockets may not perform as advertised, either in capability or cost. Still, investing in a few starting studies won’t cost much and will likely have a big payoff.

For another, like the poet Goethe on his deathbed, we astronomers will always be asking for “more light.” But if we call for yet bigger and more complex telescopes than the already awesome Great Observatories recommended by the National Academies 2020 Astronomy Survey, then we will bring back all the costly issues faced by the Webb designers.

Space agencies have the challenge of keeping the astronomers’ endless desires under strict control – building to cost must come first.

But if agencies can keep astronomers’ ambitions from becoming too astronomical, while taking full advantage of the new design space opened up by the superheavy-lift rockets, then our understanding of the universe could advance beyond imagination in just a decade or so.

Martin Elvis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Superheavy-lift rockets like SpaceX’s Starship could transform astronomy by making space telescopes cheaper – https://theconversation.com/superheavy-lift-rockets-like-spacexs-starship-could-transform-astronomy-by-making-space-telescopes-cheaper-270001

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, Honorary Reader in MIgration and Politics, University of Kent

What is an election and when is it completed?

That’s the legal question at the heart of Watson v. Republican National Committee, the mail-in ballot case the U.S. Supreme Court took up in November 2025. The court will most likely hand down a ruling before the midterm elections in 2026.

Mississippi law, similar to that of 15 other states, allows for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received by election officials up to five days later, then counted.

But the Republican National Committee is arguing in the Watson case, which was brought against the state of Mississippi in January 2024, that this procedure is not legal. An election, the argument goes, includes the receipt of ballots; therefore, all ballots must be in hand at the close of Election Day – the congressionally established “Tuesday after the first Monday” in November.

President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive rrder 14248 similarly calls for ballots to be received no later than Election Day if they are to be counted, saying that doing otherwise “is like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on mail-in ballots could have major consequences for the 47.6 million Americans who voted by mail in 2024, as well as more than 900,000 overseas military and civilian voters covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. More than 28 million of the 47.6 million domestic mail-in votes and nearly 800,000 of the 900,000 votes cast and counted under the uniformed and overseas citizens act were from states that allow for return of mail-in ballots after Election Day.

As a political scientist and scholar of migration, I have conducted research for over 20 years on military service members and civilian U.S. citizens living overseas.

Currently, 16 states plus the District of Columbia allow domestic absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive after Election Day; 29 states extend that right to military and civilian voters living overseas, recognizing that international mail often delays ballot return.

According to the U.S Constitution, states administer elections. Under the equal protection clause, however, the federal government can pass legislation to prevent inequalities in access to voting. This includes facilitating the right to vote of military service members and civilian U.S. citizens living overseas.

The Supreme Court will decide whether federal law overrides state election administration in determining whether ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive later can be counted.

A 250-year history

The history of absentee, or mail-in, ballots in U.S. elections stretches back 2½ centuries.

Soldiers first voted by mail during the American Revolution, when men from the town of Hollis, New Hampshire, wrote their town leaders asking to have votes counted in local elections.

Pennsylvania passed the first law allowing soldiers to vote absentee in the War of 1812, a right expanded in the Civil War when 19 Union and seven Confederate states allowed soldiers to vote absentee.

Absentee voting for soldiers from all states was codified in federal law in 1942. A 1944 amendment specified that ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and arrived within two weeks after Election Day could be counted.

Some civilians residing overseas, including civilian government employees and spouses and dependents of military and civilian employees, gained absentee ballot voting rights with the 1955 Federal Voting Assistance Act. All overseas U.S. citizens were enfranchised with the 1975 Overseas Citizens Voting Act. The 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act consolidated military and civilian voting rules. Later laws addressed electronic communications.

Over 1,000 military service members requested an absentee ballot in Mississippi’s 2024 election, along with nearly 1,000 civilian overseas voters. Nationally, more than 900,000 people voted in 2024 under the uniformed and overseas citizens act.

Many of these U.S. citizens would be affected by a ballot receipt deadline on Election Day. Their votes, coming from around the world, are often not able to be counted because of late arrival.

Under the magnifying glass in Florida

Overseas absentee military and civilian ballots came to widespread notice in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. That election – and ultimately the presidency — centered on state election law being waived by canvassing boards under pressure from the Republican Party to count military and civilian absentee ballots received after Election Day.

The Supreme Court decided in December 2000 to stop further counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day because of tight certification deadlines, with the Electoral College meeting just six days later.

Congress was concerned about the unequal treatment of ballots at home and abroad in the 2000 election. To move toward addressing these concerns, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002, which includes measures to facilitate overseas voting.

Ensuring that everyone gets a vote

Increasing mail-in voting has been a question of making sure everyone who qualifies to vote can do so. Oregon was the first state, in 1998, to offer mail-in voting. Surveys have shown that more Democrats than Republicans voted by mail in 2020. Sending ballots to all voters reduces that gap.

By 2020, 33 states offered “no excuse” domestic absentee voting, with others expanding or facilitating mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic that year.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program is charged with making it easier for overseas voters to vote. It continues to find obstacles, including problems in returning ballots on time. Meanwhile, Florida election supervisors in November 2025 requested that Florida officials reinstate a checkbox that was dropped from Florida absentee ballots in 2021. The checkbox allowed the voter to request an absentee ballot for the next election.

Mail-in ballot security

Following concerns about the security of mail-in ballots in the 2000 election in Florida, the 2002 Help America Vote Act required that all states have a minimum security requirement.

The multiple levels of scrutiny include signature comparison, ballot tracking and penalties for malfeasance from the moment of registration to ballot request, to ballot receipt. With these layers of security there were only an estimated four fraudulent votes cast for every 10 million mail-in ballots in the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 U.S. general elections.

Mail-in voting elsewhere

The United States is one of 32 countries worldwide that allow mail-in voting for at least some of its citizens. These include the United Kingdom since 1945 and Germany since 1957.

In Germany’s federal elections in 2025, 37% of all voters, or 18.5 million citizens, cast a ballot by mail. German citizens who are eligible to vote automatically receive ballots. In the United Kingdom’s 2024 election, just under 5%, or nearly 1.3 million citizens, applied for mail-in ballots.

The bottom line

The Supreme Court case could reshape the voting landscape in the United States, potentially affecting 47 million people, including some 5 million military and civilian voters living abroad. Watson v. Republican National Committee could also affect laws in 29 states. The outcome of the case has the potential to make voting more difficult for millions of civilian and military voters at home and abroad.

Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Americans have had their mail-in ballots counted after Election Day for generations − a Supreme Court ruling could end the practice – https://theconversation.com/americans-have-had-their-mail-in-ballots-counted-after-election-day-for-generations-a-supreme-court-ruling-could-end-the-practice-267409