SCOTUS Poised For Broad Election Law Decision?
It's been a bit of a slow news day today, after a flurry of Russia Hoax related news late yesterday. However, the really big news--Dem efforts to steal an election via Lawfare--continues to build and may be reaching a critical point. Shipwreckedcrew has the story, as usual, and I urge you to read his excellent account:
In the most recent post here--SCOTUS Shows The Way To Preserve Election Laws --we drew attention to the emergency stay that the SCOTUS ordered in the South Carolina case of Obama judge manufactured election law changes. That decision had the looks of the SCOTUS offering a template for GOP election lawyers to obtain similar emergency stays elsewhere.
Today, we learn that the SCOTUS is about to take on the Pennsylvania case, in which an emergency stay is also being sought. A difference in this case, however, is that both sides are asking the SCOTUS to decide the case immediately on the merits, and the court has received briefs on the merits.
While I urge you to read SWC's full article, here are a few excerpts that show how pivotal this case could turn out to be for the entire country:
Basically, SCOTUS is being urged to avoid another Bush v. Gore, where issues of Florida State election law and vote counting procedures were litigated after the election was concluded, with the outcome of the case impacting the manner in which the votes were tallied.
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As is the case with the numerous federal court decisions changing state election laws, the justification for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rewrite was the impact of COVID 19 on the ability of some voters to cast their ballots. But the situation is different in Pennsylvania in that the Democrat Governor, Tom Wolf, had urged the Pennsylvania legislature to make changes to Pennyslvania’s election laws ahead of the 2020 election that was much the same as those imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. But the Legislature, with Republican majorities in control of both Houses, declined to pass the legislation urged by the Governor.
In fact, the GOP controlled legislature considered changes to the election laws that would have been the direct opposite of the changes made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
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While it might seem like the three-day extension for receiving mail-in ballots is the most pernicious aspect of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, the much more egregious aspect of the order is the one establishing a “rebuttable presumption” with regard to the mailing date of a ballot that lacks a postmark or bears a postmark that is illegible with respect to the mailing date. The Court’s decision states that such ballots will be “presumed” to have been timely mailed unless there exists a preponderance of the evidence to show the ballot was mailed after election day.
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If SCOTUS invalidates the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, it likely cuts-off every other line of attack being employed by Democrat party interest groups in trying to “game” the November 3 election under the guise that COVID 19 somehow makes all this imperative.
Allowing the decision to stand would provide fuel to the efforts of creative lawyers to tinker with election laws across the country in order to rig the election process in a way that favors their clients. Such an outcome would only lead to more Bush v. Gore cases, rather than eliminate them.
It certainly appears--bearing in mind that there were no published dissents from the ruling in the South Carolina case--that the SCOTUS as a whole understands the importance of having an election that is conducted on established rules rather than ad hoc last minute rigging maneuvers.
Stay tuned--pun partly intended.