After Election Day in the US, all eyes were on these states, where
….this was happening.
These poll workers are counting ballots that would decide the outcome of this election.
But there’s another reason why these states are critical. Republican lawyers have filed
lawsuits in each one of these places, in an attempt to sue their way to electoral victory
The one in Pennsylvania is about whether a
portion of the ballots should be counted.
Like everywhere else in the US, Pennsylvania had a mix of in-person and mail-in voting,
and the difference between which type of voting Trump and Biden voters chose was huge.
All of these mail-in votes that arrived before Election Day, couldn’t be counted until
then. And ordinarily in Pennsylvania, any ballots
that arrive after Election Day, don’t count at all.
But because of the pandemic and mail delays, the state’s highest court ruled that any
ballots postmarked on Election Day, and received up to 3 days after, would be counted.
But that batch of votes became contentious. The Trump campaign… they want these ballots
that arrive in the three day window after the election thrown out. // It's because Democrats
in this election were much more likely to vote by mail than Republicans were.
So the Trump campaign filed a motion with the US Supreme Court to overturn the Pennsylvania
court decision, and throw out any ballots received after Election Day…
Should those three extra days of ballots matter, we believe we’ll prevail in the Supreme
Court
Their hope is that the conservative-majority Supreme Court will back them up.
But what is the role of the Supreme Court in this election – and for the future?
“This promises to be one of the closest races in American presidential history”
The 2000 presidential race looms large over the question of whether a Supreme Court could
step in to decide the fate of an election.
In that case, the race came down to a single state, Florida, where the Supreme Court halted
a recount, which handed George W. Bush the presidency,
with only 537 votes over Al Gore. It was an extremely close race.
I’m honored and I guess I better write an inaugural speech.
But the 2020 election is entirely different. Republican lawyers have filed lawsuits in
several states but they likely won’t alter the course of the election—that’s because
they involve a small percentage of ballots in comparison to Biden’s lead.
like one in Georgia that involved allegations of only 53 missing ballots, a state that Biden
had been leading by nearly 2,000 votes by November 6.
or another in Pennsylvania, which involved 93 ballots that had errors fixed, where Joe
Biden was leading by at least 7,000 votes. Even a lawsuit in Nevada, which involves allegations
of 3,000 out-of-state voters, wouldn’t do much in a state where Joe Biden was already
ahead by 22,000 votes. So you're seeing these kind of rinky dink
lawsuits in a few states. I mean, they're hard to take seriously.
This is Ian Millhiser, he covers the Supreme Court for Vox.
I think some of these… lawsuits are more about creating a press narrative than they
are about actually trying to win any kind of legal dispute.
There are some serious allegations out there that deserve being pursued
The rule of law has lost its grip on the election process.
In other words, they sow distrust among Trump
supporters, who are showing up to polling locations claiming, without evidence, that
the process isn’t fair.
It’s left the voting system wide open to voter fraud.
Joe Biden’s covering up this election, he’s stealing it!
Stop the count! Stop the count! They claim that there is evidence of voter
fraud, they still haven’t produced evidence of that.
The president’s allegations of large scale fraud and theft of the election are just not substantiated.
There is one thing that I'm really worried about, this Pennsylvania
lawsuit rests on a really radical and transformational theory.
Ian is referring to the Trump campaign’s request that the Supreme Court throw out ballots
received within 3 days of the election. That motion also won’t alter the results,
because when Joe Biden won Pennsylvania to become the president elect,
those late-arriving ballots weren’t included in the official counts, they had been set
aside pending a ruling. But what makes the lawsuit radical is that
after the state supreme court granted a ballot extension in September,
Pennsylvania Republicans took it to the US Supreme Court a month later, as part of an
attack on mail-in voting. A 4-4 tied decision, without Amy Coney-Barrett,
upheld the law, which is why Pennsylvania kept the extension.
But the 4 conservative justices indicated how they might rule on future election laws.
And that would depend on a line in the Constitution about how “state legislatures” should
determine the “time, place, and manner of holding elections.”
he way that that word “legislature” has always been interpreted, going back at least
more than a century, is that the word “legislature” means whatever the valid law- making process
is within that state. In addition to literal state legislatures,
that includes the state constitutions, the state supreme courts that interpret those
laws, and the governor’s right to veto election laws.
But there are at least four justices who think that the word legislature should be read sort
of hyper literally, meaning only the legislative branch of the state.
Which means the state legislature alone could drastically impact voting rights.
And in states with Republican-led state legislatures, which are a majority of them, that would mean
they would have the ability to create election
laws that manufacture electoral advantages for Republicans in future elections.
Actions like gerrymandering electoral districts, voter ID laws which target Democratic voters,
and closing polling places in Democratic districts. And, unlike Democratic legislatures, they
could look to the conservative majority Supreme Court for support.
Will the legitimate winner of the presidential
election be sworn in as president on January 20? I'm pretty confident that's going to happen…
but if the question you're asking me is, do I feel comfortable with the long term health
of US democracy? No, not at all.