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Yesterday, the courts did not concern themselves only with folks guilty of 2020 election shenanigans. There were also two cases in which budding 2024 shenanigans were shut down.
To start, the stunts that the Georgia Elections Board tried to pull are in abeyance, for now, and will remain so well beyond the election. As readers will recall, the Board had implemented two measures intended to cause chaos and to lay the groundwork for "stop the steal" claims: (1) a requirement that all ballots in Georgia be hand-counted (not the votes, just the ballots) and (2) a new power for election officials to conduct investigations into the results before certifying them.
When various voting-rights advocates sued, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney got the case. He may be a Republican appointee, but he had no patience for any of this foolishness, and ruled that the Georgia Elections Board could not do what it was trying to do. The RNC appealed to the Georgia State Supreme Court, which has not just one, but eight, Republican appointees (and one judge who won a nonpartisan election back in 2018). Yesterday, the Georgia Supremes issued a unanimous order denying an expedited appeal of McBurney's ruling.
This means that if the new rules are going to be implemented, it's not going to happen until the 2026 election cycle, at the earliest. If you believe in reading the tea leaves, which is always a tricky proposition with judges and their preliminary questions/rulings, courts do tend to prioritize pressing matters. The fact that they did not prioritize this (unanimously, no less) somewhat suggests that they expect to maintain the status quo when they finally hear the case, meaning there is no rush.
Meanwhile, over in Michigan, the RNC had filed a lawsuit accusing state officials of mismanaging the voter rolls. Specifically—and you really don't need us to tell you what the scheme was—the Party wants Michigan to be much more aggressive about removing voters. We do not know if the lawyers that the RNC is hiring just aren't very good, or if the lawyers are forced to grasp at straws, because straws are all they have got.
In any case, the central contention of the RNC's case is that there are 50 Michigan counties with more registered voters than voting-age adults. This is a ridiculous assertion, though it is EXACTLY the kind of claim you see if you lurk on Fox News' website or any other right-leaning message/comment boards. U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering was having none of it, and issued a 30-page ruling scorching the plaintiffs. The ruling raises three main points: (1) the method that the RNC used to compile its numbers is nonsensical, (2) therefore, the argument the RNC is making does not hold water, and (3) even if the argument DID hold water, the RNC does not have standing to file the suit.
It is nominally possible that the RNC could try to appeal Beckering's ruling, but their odds of success are long. First, as with the Georgia Supreme Court, it is doubtful that the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is eager to rearrange its schedule to entertain a bunch of conspiracy-based legal theories. And even if the Sixth Circuit IS open to that, any court is going to be VERY leery of making big changes to the voter rolls (or to anything else election-related) this late in the process. Also, don't forget that Beckering absolutely dismantled the RNC's case, so there's every chance that if and when the Sixth Circuit did take a look at the case, they would say, "Yeah, Judge Bickering's ruling looks about right to us."
That leads us to the exact conclusion that we had for yesterday's item when it comes to Republican legal shenanigans: The courts just aren't interested in playing along. And even if the RNC or the Trump campaign or any other entity can find one or two judges willing to tote their water (a Neomi Rao, a Trevor McFadden, an Aileen Cannon), it's not easy to draw Republican stooges three or four times in a row. (Z)