Read the 11-page opinion and order (via Stephen Fowler. who also notes the case was brought by a Republican state law maker and a Republican election official).

The primary basis for the ruling is that the new rules violate state statutes governing the conduct of the election process. But there is also a holding that the rules violate the state constitution and the U.S. Constitution under what I would consider to be an overly aggressive reading of the independent state legislature theory given Moore v. Harper.

It’s especially odd that the ISLT analysis does not discuss the majority opinion in Moore v. Harper itself, which is the Supreme Court’s take on the doctrine. The question of how the doctrine could apply to administrative agencies is a difficult one that I wrote about in a Supreme Court amicus brief in Moore. The theory here, if followed, could lead to a ton of federal court second guessing of election law administrator rules.

And of course that ISLT discussion was unnecessary: state law was enough reason to strike these rules.