Source:-https:\/\/theprint.in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington: President Donald Trump said he will go to the U.S. Supreme Court because he wants \u201call voting to stop,\u201d as he tries to hold on to early leads in key battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He won\u2019t be able to go there immediately and it\u2019s not clear he has a legal argument that could affect the outcome of the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cases typically work their way to the nation\u2019s highest court after a ruling by a local judge and then other appeals courts. In 2000, it took more than a month before the Supreme Court issued the landmark Bush v. Gore ruling that ultimately decided that year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Supreme Court has only limited power to sway the outcome of the election. Trump would need to raise specific legal objections \u2014 under either the Constitution or a federal statute \u2014 that could swing a pivotal state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe election could end up in #SCOTUS <\/strong>only if a tipping-point state is close enough that a pool of votes subject to a non-frivolous challenge (say, late-arriving absentee ballots in PA) is outcome-determinative,\u201d tweeted Stephen Vladeck a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas. \u201cJust because we don\u2019t have a result now doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s likely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As counting continues in states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump said in an early morning speech \u2014 in which he also falsely claimed victory \u2014 that the tabulation delays were an \u201can embarrassment to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a major fraud on our nation,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe want the law to be used in a proper manner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s campaign said it had legal teams ready to counter any lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort, and they will prevail,\u201d Biden\u2019s campaign manager, Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump didn\u2019t lay out any grounds for a possible challenge, and it\u2019s not clear what irregularities his lawyers would target, said Nicholas Whyte, who runs an election blog for APCO Worldwide, a consulting firm in Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exaggeration<\/strong> One longtime Republican lawyer said Trump will have difficulty stopping votes that came in on or before Election Day from being counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how to a large extent he\u2019d be able to justify a law to just bypass the state procedures and disenfranchise people who\u2019ve legally cast their ballots,\u201d Ben Ginsberg, who advised George W. Bush in 2000, said on CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other lawsuits on various issues, however, are already in the works that could wind their way through the appellate process quickly. The justices may revisit the question, and ballots received after Tuesday are set to be kept separate, pending further litigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFour conservative justices have already declared that they are willing to review the case after the election. They left open the door,\u201d said Ilaria Di Gioia, Associate Director of the Centre for American Legal Studies at Birmingham City University in the U.K. \u201cThe issue is whether it should be up to the state legislature or up to the Supreme Court to decide how to count votes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans are banking on newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to make the difference. Trump appointed three judges to the Supreme Court during his first term, including Coney Barrett who was confirmed just a week before the election, to cement a conservative majority on the bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No guarantee<\/strong> \u201cIf you happen to have a lawsuit, it definitely doesn\u2019t hurt if you get to pick the judges,\u201d said Miller, who is teaching at the Max Planck Law Network in Frankfurt. But Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican appointee, has recently opposed his conservative peers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only time the Supreme Court has resolved a disputed presidential election was 2000, when the court sealed the election for Republican George W. Bush by stopping Florida ballot recounts that could have swung that state for Democrat Al Gore. The high court said the different standards for counting ballots around the state violated the Constitution\u2019s equal protection clause. Bush won the state by 537 votes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course before it went to the Supreme Court, it would have to go to local courts anyway so this talk of taking it straight to the Supreme Court is an exaggeration,\u201d Whyte said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key state
And Republicans are already asking the Supreme Court to block mail-in ballots from being counted in Pennsylvania if they arrive after Tuesday. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously ordered a three-day extension for ballots to arrive, saying it was required by the state constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily left the ruling intact on a 4-4 vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Republicans also would need to persuade the court\u2019s other conservatives to invalidate ballots from voters who might have been relying on the extension, and that\u2019s no guarantee, says Russell Miller, a professor at Washington and Lee School of Law in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n