The Mail of the Specious

I know it is not obligatory that I understand why the Supreme Court takes up the cases it does.  Especially this Supreme Court.  That said – I don’t even begin to understand why the Supreme Court has taken up the case, pushed by Trump and MAGOPs, about when you can count mail-in ballots, that only mail-in ballots received by Election Day should be allowed to be counted – not (as is the case now) counting every mail-in ballot that has been postmarked by Election Day.

As far as I understand reality, the issue with voting is when the ballots were cast.  Not when they were counted.  Ballots could sit around for days before anyone decided to count them.  And the results would still be official. 

California does, of course, begin counting votes on Election Night – but the state is so populous they notoriously don’t finish counting their votes for weeks.  In fact, county officials in California have a full month to count and certify their votes.  Are the votes they count after Election Night not supposed to be considered valid?

Let’s go further and compare.  In the 2024 general election, 15 million people cast ballots in California.  On the other hand, in Wyoming, there were 260,000 votes recorded.  Just as a pure guess, I’d think it takes more time to count votes in California than Wyoming.  Would it proper to penalize states that have more people living in them and therefore require more time to count their votes?  No, obviously. And we don’t do so.  But if MAGOPs don’t want mail-in votes counted after Election Night – why don’t we stop counting after midnight? 

For that matter, my sense from following results on Election Nights is that many states stop counting votes around 11 PM and send everyone home.  So, if votes are only qualified if they’re counted on Election Night, does that mean that people who got their votes registered on time, but not counted before registrars got tired and went home would have their ballots invalidated?

If so, then what would keep states from sending vote counters home when the candidates they want to win have more votes?

Obviously that’s not going to happen – it’s ludicrous.  But…the question remains.  Which is why this MAGOP challenge to mail-in vote counting is ludicrous.

But let’s take it to the next logical step.  If mail-in ballots aren’t supposed to be counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked and registered before then, it should follow (to be fair), then no votes should be counted after Election Night.  Which would then raise the question about recounts?  If you can’t count votes after Election Night…why should you be allowed you re-count them days after Election Night??  You are, of course, and should be allowed to.  But why not mail-in votes?

Again, the whole point with voting is when the votes were cast, not when they were counted!

Fun Fact:  Mail-in ballots have been counted after Election Day since before the Civil War.

I don’t even begin to understand why even this Supreme Court agreed to take up this case.  It strikes me as profoundly illogical and idiotic, to the extent that if the law as it stands in every state is overturned and mail-in votes can only be counted on the day of the election, it raises so many more issues and so many more massive problems.  Which are unnecessary because – the whole point with voting is when the votes were cast, not when they were counted!

But then, when any question that relates to why “this” Supreme Court would act – that pretty much provides the answer.  Along with the concept of illogical and idiotic.

Who knows how they’ll decide?  They may rule that the case is illogical and idiotic.  Or not.  But I don’t even begin to understand why they took it up.  Even this Supreme Court.

But they’re “this Supreme Court.”  And not only do I not have to understand why on earth they do what they do, neither – as it’s so often happened – do lawyers.