11-02-2024, 02:25 PM
Acer wrote:
Well, the case was for the primary, but it still supports the same concerns around provisional ballots in the current election. Somehow, Pennsylvania has some magic sauce in how it handles elections that SCOTUS has declined to override the PA state supreme court on several election issues.
I think the six Republican partisans on the Court are still trying to come to an agreement about "the independent state legislature theory":
What would happen if the Supreme Court accepted the independent state legislature theory?
The independent state legislature theory would cause significant disruption by potentially nullifying state constitutional provisions regarding federal elections. State constitutional bans on gerrymandering in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and other states could die, as could independent redistricting commissions in Arizona, California, Michigan and other states. Other state constitutional provisions — like the right to a secret ballot in many states — could also be wiped out.
Delegations of authority would also be questionable, robbing elections commissions and secretaries of state of the power to make decisions, including in emergencies. And only federal courts would have the power to review gerrymandering or voter suppression claims relating to federal elections.
The nightmare scenario is that a legislature, displeased with how an election official on the ground has interpreted her state’s election laws, would invoke the theory as a pretext to refuse to certify the results of a presidential election and instead select its own slate of electors. Indeed, this isn’t far from the plan attempted by Trump allies following his loss in the 2020 election. And, according to former federal judge J. Michael Luttig — a distinguished conservative jurist — the theory is a part of the “Republican blueprint to steal the 2024 election.”
These high stakes underscore the significance of the challenge the independent state legislature theory presents to the courts.
I suspect that at least four of the Justices want to embrace this in some form but a couple of the other Republican Justices are not completely convinced yet. But maybe they are in agreement and putting it off for some strategic political reason.