Election experts doubt Supreme Court decides White House race

[brooklynite]

Roll Call

“Let's put the chances of that happening at about 5.2 percent,” Ben Ginsberg, the prominent election lawyer who led the George W. Bush campaign's legal strategy during the disputed Florida recount in 2000, has quipped in pre-election webinars.

Ginsberg bases that on the idea that only three of the country’s 57 presidential elections have been contested, and that the 2000 election had one state that was remarkably close and determined the outcome of the election. “That does not usually happen,” he said.

...snip...

But there’s a misconception about how likely it is that a legal challenge will get to the Supreme Court, since Bush v. Gore in 2000 hinged on just 527 votes that were going to determine the outcome of the election, said Vanita Gupta, the president and chief executive officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“There will be a lot of litigation, but most of it around the counting of ballots likely will not be going to the United States Supreme Court,” Gupta, who also ran the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration, said during a briefing held by the National Task Force on Election Crises.

Biden's legal team doesn't believe it will happen either. But what do they know?

[TwilightZone]

1. People keep trying to compare this to 2016. It's a ridiculous comparison.

As the article notes, 2016 was one state that was extremely close - close enough to impact.

2020 would require overriding the laws and election commissions of multiple states. It would require the SC to appoint Trump president, simply ignoring all available evidence, laws, and so forth.

It's just not going to happen.

Doesn't stop people from freaking out about it, however. And posting a zillion similar threads about the topic.

[Turin_C3PO]

2. I've been saying the same thing.

Extraordinarily unlikely that they will be able to steal the election.

[NewsCenter28]

3. Except he will attempt to run straight to SCOTUS at 12:01 A.M. EDT, Wednesday, Nov 4, 2020

And get them to issue a nationwide injunction against any further ballot counting. Similar to what SCOTUS did in FL 2000. Counties busy counting votes until the hammer comes down and they were told that the counting was done as it was irreparably harming their boy, Dubya. The argument will be that any ballots that are counted past 12:01 are illegal. How they would do this is below from Wikipedia:

Authority
The relevant constitutional clause states:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Certain cases that have not been considered by a lower court may be heard by the Supreme Court in the first instance under what is termed original jurisdiction. The Supreme Court's authority in this respect is also derived from Article III of the Constitution, which states that the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction "in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party." The original jurisdiction of the Court is set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 1251. This statute provides that lower federal courts may also hear cases where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction,[2]:19–20 with the exception of disputes between two or more states. When a case is between two or more states, the Supreme Court holds both original and exclusive jurisdiction, and no lower court may hear such cases.

They can take a case without any lower judicial review, unfortunately.

[CincyDem]

7. Good luck with that.

Elections are a state responsibility. Hard to imagine even this SCOTUS stepping into that one, in spite of Kegger’s footnote to Wisconsin decision.

IMHO.

[leftieNanner]

8. He will want to do that

IF he is in the lead. He would just need to convince 50 Secretaries of State to stop doing their jobs. Except for Brian Kemp two years ago, I think they take their work very seriously and consider it an issue of pride to do an accurate count.

Let's hope Joe scorches him on November 3!

[NewsCenter28]

12. My fear would be that he gets the nationwide injunction against further counting of ballots after 12

And then SCOTUS orders the secretaries of state to certify these partial illegitimate results without delay. Doing that could throw the House and Senate results into enormous dispute also.

[sir pball]

18. That's not gonna happen, even Kavanaugh isn't against that

His "chilling" opinion is about counting ballots that have arrived after Election day, not about counting all ballots BY Election day. Yeah, disallowing late ballots will disproportionately affect Dems, but frankly if you've waited this long to mail your ballot in, that's on you.

[brooklynite]

11. NO, it's NOT "Similar to what SCOTUS did in FL"

In FL, vote tallies didn't end at midnight.

Recounts were ordered.

The legal challenges were over the extending the deadlines for County level recounts.

The legal challenges were against Republican officials who were opposed to continuing the recounts.

There were intervening local Court cases and rulings before the SC got involved.

[NewsCenter28]

16. I know the specifics of FL are not at all the same

But the issue here is SCOTUS stealing an election.

Authority
The relevant constitutional clause states:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

So, his legal beagles rush over to the SCOTUS at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, with lawsuits against all 50 states demanding an immediate nationwide injunction ending all further ballot counting immediately, and asking that SCOTUS order the Secretaries of State to certify the partial illegitimate results immediately in a case called theoretically 'Trump V. PA, et al." Further, they claim original jurisdiction mentioning "in which a state shall be the Party" grants them immediate hearing before SCOTUS. The brief they file claims that all the mail-in ballots are illegal and that the remedy is to toss all VBM ballots and that only in-person election day and early voting are constitutional. They will want to keep the in-person early voting results I'm pretty sure.

The Supreme Court, citing irreparable harm to Trump, grants a temporary injunction pending their further review ala 2000.

Can you tell me, for sure (other than citing some broad tropes about respecting the rule of law and societal norms, which Trump has smashed repeatedly), that that cannot, even theoretically happen. If so, I'll be super relieved and more than glad, ecstatic even, to stand down.

[sir pball]

20. THEORETICALLY SCOTUS can do whatever they want

But as a practical matter, no, I do not see them ordering the stoppage of all ballot counting at 12:01 am. Even Amy Coneyislandhotdog would probably concede that the "irreparable harm" in that situation would be to the voters, not Trump.

I can see them muddying the waters with endless recound demands until multiple Florida 2000s happen, but I would stake literally my entire life savings against your scenario.

[Cha]

4. We Hope to Hell NOT.

[NewsCenter28]

5. And if they try, Cha, the answer is to hit the streets

like earlier this year and the way the Ukrainians did in 2004, the Velvet Revolution.

[Cha]

9. I know.. We can't let them Steal

another election from us.

[NewsCenter28]

10. Yep that's for damn sure, Cha!

This time must and will be different!

[The Magistrate]

6. I Agree, Sir

A chance of one in twenty should be noticed, but it ought not to loom....

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. In most states, the first ballots counted, and the first results to be released

are going to be all the early and mailed in votes. Which seem to be very heavily in favor of Biden. Given that, a likelier scenario is that all of a sudden Republicans will want to count all the ballots that arrive late, in the desperate hope they will be enough to swing the election to Trump.

[leftieNanner]

15. Oregon is 100% VBM

And they start opening and counting ballots one week before election day.

Which means TODAY!

We should have reasonable numbers out of Oregon pretty quickly.

For the states that cannot open mail-in ballots until election night, it will not be so easy.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. Several other states do all vote by.

Washington, Hawaii, Utah, and Colorado. I'm sure they all have slightly different rules about when the cut-off for arriving ballots will be, but I bet the vast majority will be in hand and counted by that evening.

This is an interesting chart that shows how each and every state does it: https://ballotpedia.org/When_states_can_begin_processing_and_counting_absentee/mail-in_ballots,_2020

[leftieNanner]

22. Great info

Thanks.

[NewsCenter28]

17. Ya for sure, that's our way out of avoiding SCOTUS shenanigans and what I'm praying for-n/t

[Blue Owl]

14. K&R

[mzmolly]

19. "The thing to watch is how smoothly vote counting goes and whether there are broad challenges ...

... from the Trump campaign"

I hope there is a victory so overwhelming that even Trump can't deny the results.