A new Justice, Democracy, and Law essay at SCOTUSblog. Focusing on the new cert grant in Watson v. RNC, which concerns the deadline for submitting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day, the essay considers two different jurisprudential perspectives the Court could employ for deciding the case: (1) a “representation-reinforcing” posture of the kind advocated by John Hart Ely and employed in earlier SCOTUS precedents; or (2) a “democracy-neutral” textualism favored by the current Court and exhibited in such cases as Rucho v. Common Cause. Contending that the Court will and indeed should eschew the former jurisprudential posture in this case because of the partisan polarization that presently afflicts the role of absentee voting in American democracy, the essay explains why the latter jurisprudential perspective of democracy-neutral textualism should yield the conclusion that states are entitled under federal law to set the deadline for receiving cast absentee ballots after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by then.