The Supreme Court put an end to the legal challenges to the 2020 election this week, closing out a painful chapter of modern American history. Their rush to consider all these cases moot might well be understandable given the fantastical nature of some of the challenges, but it was ill-advised in other cases dealing with separation of powers and election rules.
For too long, state officials and courts at all levels have interfered with statutes governing elections, overriding the constitutional role assigned to state legislatures to set and enforce the rules for each state. The Supreme Court punted on these issues before the election in Pennsylvania. And now they have done so yet again.
As Clarence Thomas warned in his dissent, this only guarantees these issues will come up again. The next time the impact might force the courts to decide the winner. That would be a disaster for the confidence of Americans in the electoral process.
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