Not to put too fine a point on it:
From that AP story:
The justices, by a 5-3 vote Wednesday, refused to disturb a decision by the State Board of Elections to lengthen the period from three to nine days because of the coronavirus pandemic, pushing back the deadline to Nov. 12. The board’s decision was part of a legal settlement with a union-affiliated group.
Republicans had asked the high court to step in.
Under the Supreme Court’s order, mailed ballots postmarked on or before Election Day must be received by 5 p.m. on Nov. 12 in order to be counted.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in the majority. Three conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, dissented.
The ruling is here. Rick Hasen adds at Election Law Blog:
The Gorsuch dissent primarily argues that a North Carolina election board settlement approved by a state court usurped the power of the state legislature, although he also analogizes the holding to the one in the Wisconsin case, which involved a federal court and totally different issues (i.e., the power of a federal court, close to the election, to alter election rules to protect constitutional rights). Justice Gorsuch seems to be trying to move the Purcell principle to apply to state agency actions, and that would be an even bigger problem than applying it to federal court decisions.
There are a few reasons to explain why this position did not attract the votes of CJ Roberts or J. Kavanaugh. First, the issue is messier; to some extent the legislature delegated the power to the state agency to enter into settlements. There’s also the timing and reliance issue; many, many voters have already made their voting plans dependent on the deadlines announced in the settlement, and now we are just days away from the election and there would be no other recourse for some of those voters to vote.
Unlike Justice Alito’s statement in today’s Pennsylvania ruling, Justice Gorsuch’s statement does not talk about any post-election action or any segregation of ballots. But segregation of those late arriving ballots might still make sense, for reasons I explained here in the context of Pennsylvania: it would make it harder for the NC General Assembly to declare the election somehow void and try to get around with the appointment of separate presidential electors.
What Hasen wrote earlier reflects on the PA attorney general’s instructions to “securely segregate all mail-in and civilian absentee ballots received between 8:00 p.m. on
Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 6, 2020, from all other voted
ballots”:
Why would Democratic state officials do this? The most logical answer I can think of is that they want to prevent a situation where the later ballots are commingled with the earlier ballots, and in response the Republican state legislature says that the election was fundamentally unfair and the legislature tries to appoint its own state of electors by claiming that the state “failed to make a choice” for president under the Electoral Count Act. the logic is that it is far better to take that potential argument away than to allow those additional ballots to be counted in the event they are found to be illegally accepted.
Great. Just great. Hoping now that NCDP’s Election Protection team is reviewing this. If NC Republicans think they might get away with something like this, Team “Surgical Precision” will try if the state goes blue.
Aaaand with the Roberts court, there is always a dark side:
Until the GOP and the Federalist Society disappear altogether, this weary nation may have gone from permanent campaign to permanent court battle.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Tomorrow begins Get-Out-The Vote weekend.
If your county is not prepared for it by now, it’s kinda late.
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.