Supreme Court Gives GOP Reason for Optimism in Post-Election Lawsuits

WFB- Republican-controlled legislatures in battleground states are likely to play a deciding role in any post-Election Day legal disputes.

It’s hard to anticipate just what a post-election legal fight will involve. However, many pre-election lawsuits to reach the Supreme Court have involved a particular fault-line: On the one side is a state legislature, which sets the rules and procedures for the election; and on the other is a state court, which relaxes or alters those procedures, citing other state law sources and the coronavirus pandemic as justification. If that pattern holds, President Donald Trump has reason for optimism.

So far, a short-handed Supreme Court has sided with state judges in such cases, allowing their late-breaking adjustments over the objections of GOP lawmakers and the Trump campaign. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, however, may hold a fifth vote in favor of the GOP-controlled legislatures. Republicans control both legislative chambers in such critical states as Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

One emergency election appeal that reached the Supreme Court from Pennsylvania illustrates the pattern, possibly presaging post-election events. In that dispute, the state legislature set an 8:00 p.m. Election Day deadline for all mail-in ballots. A Pennsylvania state court extended that deadline by three days, invoking a provision of the state constitution that says elections should be conducted in a manner that protects voting rights “to the greatest degree possible.”

In a short separate statement, Justice Samuel Alito lamented that the original Election Day deadline had been displaced. He pointed to a section of the Constitution that provides federal election rules “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” MORE