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What election cases could the U.S. Supreme Court decide? – Deseret News

What election cases could the U.S. Supreme Court decide? – Deseret News

All eyes may be on the political campaigns that begin at midnight when American voters cast their ballots in the 2024 elections, but there is another area of ​​government where electoral decisions are made: the courts.

State efforts to purge voter rolls of noncitizens have been met with lawsuits. The presidential candidate, who suspended his campaign and tried to get off the ballot in two battleground campaigns, also faces legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court has addressed these issues, and it remains to be seen how it will resolve other election-related issues.

Courts may be a bit wary of stepping into election-related issues, especially right before an election. So it’s interesting to see which cases the Supreme Court decides to look at and which it doesn’t.

Virginia Voter Roll

On Wednesday, following Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s victory, the nation’s highest court allowed the continuation of a state program to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls.

The one-page order issued by the court simply states the decision and states that Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson will deny the state’s request.

“Clean voter rolls are an important part of the comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the integrity of our elections,” Youngkin said in his speech statement celebrating the court’s decision, he added that Virginians can know that the state’s elections “are fair, secure and free from politically motivated interference.”

The Department of Justice sued the state over Virginia’s move, saying it would “disenfranchise, confuse or deter voters by giving them enough time to correct errors and understand their rights.” The lawsuit said Virginia likely removed U.S. citizens from its lists. The state said voters removed from the rolls either identified as non-citizens or were identified as non-citizens.

Virginia’s governor signed an executive order in August removing voters from the statewide rolls who were unable to verify they were citizens of the Department of Motor Vehicles, among other goals to increase election security. Directs the Department of Elections to check the list of people identified as foreign nationals and see if they appear on the voter rolls.

The Department of Elections is then supposed to notify these people and give them 14 days to confirm their citizenship.

Virginia removed about 1,600 people from its voter rolls.

State records show that about 600 of these people told the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles that they were not citizens, and about 1,000 provided non-citizen residency documents to the DMV (and were subsequently identified as non-citizens in a U.S. database). .

The district court, which ruled before the Supreme Court, found that there was evidence that the registration of eligible voters was canceled without their knowledge. The brief filed by the United States Attorney General referenced this district court decision. The report alleged a violation of the voter registration law.

Utah joined an amicus brief led by Kansas in support of Virginia. The Utah Attorney General’s office declined to comment when the Deseret News asked for a statement.

The report found that 26 states “are interested in preserving their constitutional authority to determine voter qualifications in elections and in preserving election integrity by allowing only eligible citizens to vote.” The states said that since the district court ordered Virginia to re-enlist those voters, non-citizens would potentially be able to vote in the election.

Utah State Senator Mike Lee celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision. He is an author a bill known as the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act), which would require ID to vote in federal elections and give states the ability to verify citizenship using federal databases).

“Excellent news for election integrity,” Lee said social media post. “Only Americans should vote in American elections.”

Pennsylvania case

The Republican National Committee filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court on Monday, asking for a stay on the decision.

Last week’s decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court resulted in election officials being ordered to count provisional ballots from voters whose mailed ballots were rejected.

The RNC argued that this effectively created a process for curing mail-in voting errors that Pennsylvania lawmakers had not created. The case centers on Butler County.

“The undeterred majority below believed that election officials have to “count a provisional ballot cast by an individual whose absentee ballot was received in a timely manner but could not be counted because it violated a mandatory rule, such as a missing signature, date, or envelope secrecy,” RNC lawyers said in the petition.

The petition said Pennsylvania had overstepped the mark.

“When the legislature determines it can be done for certain ballots Never count, a state court cannot pencil in this clear instruction Always,– it was written in the notification. It said the issue was of great importance because it could influence who controls the Senate and even who wins the presidency.

The case began after two Pennsylvanians sued. Their absentee ballots were rejected because they were not returned in secrecy envelopes. They were advised to return provisional ballots, but the county board of elections rejected the ballots, prompting them to file a lawsuit.

When the case went to the state’s highest court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that their votes should be counted 4-3.

“Following the recommendations of the electoral code, as interpreted by this court, the commission was correct in disregarding mailed ballots as invalid,” the court said. “However, he erred by refusing to count voters’ provisional ballots.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has not taken a position at this time.

Supreme Court Refuses to Remove RFK Jr. from ballots in two states

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate who suspended his running mate and endorsed former President Donald Trump, filed emergency petitions to withdraw from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The Supreme Court refused to do so, meaning his name will still be on the ballot in battleground states.

Both decisions were unsigned and contained only a provision – no justification was explained. In both cases, there was only one dissent: Justice Neil Gorsuch stated that he dissented in the Michigan case.

The states argued that the ballots had already expired and voting was ongoing, so it could not be removed from the ballot.

Kennedy added that after the Supreme Court decision social media that it was “a purely political move in the hope that people who would otherwise vote for Trump would throw away their vote by voting for me instead.”

Lyman’s Petition to the Supreme Court

Phil Lyman, the Utah presidential candidate who lost the Republican primary to Gov. Spencer Cox, has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Utah Supreme Court dismissed his original petition.

Lyman asked the Utah Supreme Court to throw out the results of the Republican primary and remove Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson from office. He himself filed a petition and stated that he should be designated as the Republican Party’s candidate in the general election.

The Utah Supreme Court denied his request.

“Mr. Lyman cites no authority to support his contention that a political party’s internal rules supersede state election law,” the order said. “And he overlooks the fact that we reached the opposite conclusion in Utah Republican Party v. Cox.” There, the court said, it concluded that if the Utah Republican Party wanted to remain a qualified political party, it must comply with the statutory requirements.

After Lyman appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative political lawyer Audrey Perry said she would be “amazed” if the Supreme Court took up the case.