That’s the headline from the Associated Press.

The Electoral Count Reform Act pushed back the date the electors meet by one day to allow an extra day for resolving disputes in the states, without moving too close to the holidays or reducing the window of time for other transition-related matters (e.g., organizing the House of Representatives). As I wrote back in 2022, state legislatures should have taken the opportunity to re-examine their election codes and update them ahead of the 2024 election. Some states did so. And in Wisconsin, a Republican-led effort passed the Senate nearly unanimously. But it languished in the Republican-controlled state Assembly.

Now Republicans are suing because of vestigial language in state law that they failed to repeal and ought to have done–language saying the electors meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, rather than the ECRA’s first Tuesday after the second Wednesday. The state law clearly cannot have any force, as the Constitution provides, “The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.” And Congress has done so.

But Wisconsin, like many other states, still have this vestigial language in their laws. In many places, it will be rightly ignored, because it is “Congress” that gives the “day,” not the states. (States here are only parroting federal law.) But now lawsuits like this one in Wisconsin offer a belt-and-suspenders approach to ensure that the electors do not meet on Monday. Of course, they must meet on Tuesday, December 17, because federal law demands it. And if they do, there is no possible objection in Congress that they met on the wrong day.

Unfortunately, the lawsuit highlights how state legislative recalcitrance to update even basic election law matters can create a potential (albeit legally quite weak) problem. Here’s to hoping state legislatures update their laws by 2028.