All the Supreme Court did today is decide to preserve the status quo regarding Ohio's disputed voter registration lists, so that last minute changes to the voter registration list didn't have to happen just before the election, after early voting's already started. Many have called this a victory, but it's early in the case, and essentially signals nothing about the Supreme Court's view of the merits of the case. That outlook, as shown in the link below, is much more grim.
There's MUCH more below the surface here.
FOr starters, by "staying" and therefore not deciding the issue now, it means the issue gets decided by the Supreme Court or the lower courts AFTER the election results are known. Is that cool with you? The traditional rule of election law has always been to fix things before the election, not after.
Of course, in Bush v Gore, the court said it disfavored post-election challenges too. It plays it both ways.
Roughly, staying a TRO, as was done today regarding Ohio, means only this: Republicans were not 90% or more likely to win on the merits. It doesn't mean Republicans won't win, their chances could be anywhere between 1% and 89%. To justify a TRO, the plaintiff has to show a very high likelihood of success on the merits (later at trial or hearing on a permanent injunction).
You'll miss the impact of today's ruling unless you understand these facts:
1.
Ohio is one of only a very small number of states that PROHIBIT presidential election contests. The election contest is the way to separate illegal votes from legal votes. There's no way to do that in Ohio. Commentators that have looked at the timelines say that even if one were allowed there's not enough time to FINISH it by the safe harbor deadline, 35 days after the election.
2. A recount won't do anything to separate illegal votes from legal votes. Garbage in, garbage out.
3. IN recent US SUpreme Court litigation like Purcell v. Arizona, the
Supremes have "balanced" the mere FEAR of voter fraud leading to vote dilution against the reality of ACTUAL disfranchisement. In the voter ID cases, for example, there's no evidence of voter fraud, but that didn't matter because the mere fear of it undermines the "confidence" critical to our elections, and is balanced against the actual disfranchisement caused by VOTER ID requirements (since at any given time a sizeable % of people can't find their ID).
If you want to know where this goes and what this means, then see my full oped here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Sup-Ct-Rules-on-Ohio-by-Paul-Lehto-081017-403.html There's a link at the bottom of the oped above, or you can use this link to apply to be on my "legal updates" listserv for election 2008 called DemandingDemocracy.
http://groups.google.com/group/demanding-democracy?lnk=srg This election, unless its a blowout, will be decided in the courts. That's not a prediction, it's already happening. There are 8 lawsuits in Ohio alone already, and Sec. Brunner predicts a full dozen by election day.
Save some of your energy for the weeks after the election. That's when the election will truly be decided. Either in the media, as the first draft of history is written (even in a clean election) or in the courts. Tell your friends working in campaigns not to schedule and vacation airline tickets for the weeks after the election.
Do not believe that McCain is not a military strategist who knows how to "take out" the enemies "assets." Some say McCain's shown deficient strategy so far. I'd say Dems are in danger of being checkmated by a legal strategy that is militaristic, tactical, and sophisticated.
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