On Monday, the Supreme Court threw out several of the remaining challenges to the 2020 presidential election as moot, considering that former President Donald Trump conceded to Joe Biden, who has now become president. Yet Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the Supreme Court should have taken the opportunity to clarify election law, especially in the case of Pennsylvania.
“The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the ‘Manner’ of federal elections,” Thomas wrote. “Yet both before and after the 2020 election, nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead. As a result, we received an unusually high number of petitions and emergency applications contesting those changes.”
Thomas argued that the cases Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Veronica DeGraffenreid (2021) and Jake Corman v. Pennsylvania Democratic Party (2021) presented “a clear example” of election law issues that the Supreme Court should put to rest. “The Pennsylvania Legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots: 8 p.m. on election day. Dissatisfied, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days.”
“That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future,” Thomas argued. “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.” – READ MORE
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