“This Will Be a Critical Week for Pandemic Voting Cases at the Supreme Court”

I have written this piece for Slate. It begins:

While the nation’s attention has been focused on the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis and the ensuing questions surrounding that, it’s important to remember there will still be an election in one month. As we reach the four-week mark, the country is closing in on 350 lawsuits filed related to the 2020 elections and COVID. This is very likely to be the most important week so far for those suits. The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on cases from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, and the justices may set limits on what state and federal courts can do to accommodate voters during the pandemic as well as preemptively resolve one key issue should the 2020 elections go into overtime. I’m not optimistic.

The Trump campaign, the Republican Party, and Republican government officials, however, have so far failed in blocking government expansion of voting by mail in places like Nevada. Courts have rejected their evidence-free arguments that such expansion will “dilute” the votes of legitimate voters by injecting fraudulent ballots into the process.

Generally, though, the Republican side may be far more successful in blocking lower court orders sought by Democrats and voting rights groups seeking to expand voting by mail. Although Democrats in particular have crowed about some of their (sometimes partial) victories, things are far from over.

The biggest cases in play this week are already before the Supreme Court on an emergency basis. These Pennsylvania and South Carolina cases illustrate the state of play and the kinds of arguments Republicans are making throughout the country to try to make voting by mail harder and thereby shrink turnout in an apparent attempt to benefit Republicans.

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