“Don’t count their ballots but, if you have to, do it very poorly.” — GOP 2020

Two points I have recently made which have since become even more important.

First, earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruled that timely postmarked ballots may be received and counted up to November 6. The Republican Party of Pennsylvania immediately appealed and requested the United States Supreme Court decide the issue on an “expedited basis” prior to the election. On October 28, the United States Supreme Court denied the “expedited basis” request and, accordingly, Pennsylvania has moved forward with the ruling of its Supreme Court and count the ballots.[1]

HOWEVER, within the Court’s denial for review on an “expedited basis,” three Justices bluntly stated that they thought the Republican Party of Pennsylvania was right but time constraints prevented them from ruling so. Those Justices specifically stated that “[a]lthough the Court denies the motion to expedite, the petition for certiorari remains before us, and if it is granted, the case can then be decided under a shortened schedule.”[2] Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh did not join this opinion but, risking understatement, I strongly suspect that if asked they would fall over themselves to agree with the other conservative Justices.

If the “late” arriving Pennsylvania ballots secure a margin of victory for Vice President Joe Biden sufficiently small and the Supreme Court sets a schedule sufficiently short, then the Supreme Court could invalidate these ballots and effectively hand the election to President Trump. I am so exhausted from volunteering yesterday that I don’t have the energy to speculate on what the consequences of this course of events would be other than “very bad” and “likely violent.”

Second, the predominant reason there is so much “late” or “delayed” counting in PA and WI is because those states’ Republican legislatures enjoin election officials from processing early ballots prior to Election Day.[3] Not “count” the ballots. Not “publish” the votes within those allots. The Republican do not even let them PROCESS these ballots — opening envelopes, verifying signatures, etc. — until the Election Day which, as you may have noticed, has election officials busy with a fair number of other things.

Irrespective of your desired outcome for this election, these exclusively Republican electoral decisions only hurt the nation and only serve the purpose of preserving their own minority rule. We are caught for the foreseeable future in a national haze of ache and uncertainty. Almost all which is the foreseeable result of the Republican Party’s decisions to suppress votes and engineer dysfunction in our elections.

Regards,

SK

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2020-election-pennsylvania-ballot-deadline-supreme-court-ruling/

[2] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-542_i3dj.pdf

[3] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/23/926258497/when-will-mail-in-ballots-be-counted-see-states-processing-timelines