WASHINGTON, D.C.—in 2000 Main Media organizations analyzed Florida ballot’s and found that, “under any considered criteria, the originally pursued, limited county-based recounts would have confirmed a Presidential Candidate George W. Bush victory, whereas a state-wide recount would have revealed a Presidential Candidate Al Gore’s victory. “
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) voted in October to grant Pennsylvania officials their promise to segregate “absentee ballots by three days, as long as the ballots were postmarked by Election Day or had no legible postmark.” Pennsylvania violated the U.S. Supreme Court Order and included late ballots received after the State mandated November 3rd receipt date. The counties also included in their ballot counts ballots without legible postmarks to verify the mailing date.
The Trump Campaign is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene because Pennsylvania has violated the Court’s Order. To allow Pennsylvania the opportunity to violate the orders of the U.S. Supreme Court would set a new precedent of selective choice. States and individuals will be allowed to chose which SCOTUS order to obey.
Pennsylvania’s disposition leaves open the possibility that unresolved issues of state law will be decided adversely to the Trump’s Campaign prevailing in the Supreme Court or that the Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court’s interpretation the facts or the Court’s opinion to the detriment of the Trump’s Campaign prevailing in the Supreme Court. When it is alleged that the Pennsylvania Secretary of State and counties have deviated from the Supreme Court’s mandate, the party losing below may appeal again to the SCOTUS for mandamus to compel compliance—which they did and Pennsylvania failed to comply.
In the case of Pennsylvania’s defiance of the SCOTUS order– the Court relies on the executive and legislative branches to carry out its rulings. In Federalist No. 78, Hamilton said that the Judiciary branch of the proposed government would be the weakest of the three branches because it had “no influence over either the sword or the purse, … It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.”
The U.S. Supreme Courts’ most important power is that of judicial review, the authority to interpret the Constitution. President Donald J. Trump has appointed three justices on the SCOTUS who are scholars—and is capable of interpreting what should occur in the case of Pennsylvania ballot counting matter.
A case involving counting illegal ballots have not occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court. But defiance of the SCOTUS’ order has. During Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, in 2018, then nominee Brett Kavanaugh insisted that “one of the greatest moments in American judicial history” was the case of United States v. Nixon, in 1974. In a unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice Warren Burger, one of President Richard Nixon’s appointees, the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s claim of absolute executive privilege, ordering him to comply with a judicial subpoena to turn over the White House tapes that would lead to his resignation. In an article from 2016, Kavanaugh wrote, admiringly, that the Justices “stood up to the other branches, were not cowed, and enforced the law.”
At stake in the Pennsylvania cases is the public’s ability to know about, and seek accountability for, misconduct of the Secretary of State and county officials—including illegal ballots in the total count to defy the Trump’s Campaign a fair voting process.
During the Bush vs. Gore case Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s dissented–arguing against an equal protection claim. Ginsburg wrote that the court should have respected the principles of federalism.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens joined, and with whom Justice Souter and Justice Breyer joined as to Part I, dissenting. Ginsburg wrote “The Framers of our Constitution, however, understood that in a republican government, the judiciary would construe the legislature’s enactments. See U.S. Const., Art. III; The Federalist No. 78 (A. Hamilton). In light of the constitutional guarantee to States of a “Republican Form of Government,” U.S. Const., Art. IV, §4, Article II can hardly be read to invite this Court to disrupt a State’s republican regime. Yet The Chief Justice today would reach out to do just that. By holding that Article II requires our revision of a state court’s construction of state laws in order to protect one organ of the State from another.
Pennsylvania’s law prohibits late ballots—the Secretary of State defied the States and the U,S, Supreme Court’s Order in order to protect the ballots of the State from President Donald J. Trump.