“Supreme Court rules for Republicans over Wisconsin vote, highlighting partisan divide before November poll”

Bob Barnes for WaPo:

Just the caption of the case — Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee — was foreboding for a Supreme Court that likes to cast itself as above partisan politics.

Little wonder then that just hours after the court’s hastily written, 5 to 4 decision for Republicans in Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin, it was being denounced on social media as the latest version of Bush v. Gore.

The scant, 10-page opinion issued Monday night highlighted the court’s ideological and partisan divide. The justices’ inability to speak with one voice on matters as serious as the coronavirus pandemic and voting rights raised concerns about the legal battles bound to proliferate before the fall elections.

“It is a very bad sign for November that the court could not come together and find some form of compromise here in the midst of a global pandemic unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine, wrote on his Election Law Blog.

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