https://news.yahoo.com/echoing-trump-kavanaugh-argues-states-190352121.html
Joey Garrison, USA TODAY
,https://www.usatoday.com/news/•October 27, 2020
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh echoed President Donald Trump’s position on having results of a presidential election finalized on Election Day, perhaps previewing a Supreme Court fight over absentee ballots that could decide a contested outcome.
It came in a concurring opinion late Monday as Kavanaugh sided with the 5-3 majority that found absentee ballots in Wisconsin can only be counted if they are in possession of municipal clerks at the closure of polls on Nov. 3.
Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee to the court, wrote that states like Wisconsin require ballots be received by Election Day to “avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.”
“And those States also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter,” he said.
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Kavanaugh's opinion was not joined by any of the other justices. The court's order was unsigned, but Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan also wrote separately
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The notion that counting late-arriving absentee ballots, according to Kavanaugh, could “flip the results of an election" prompted a sharp rebuke by one of the court’s liberal justices.
“There are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted,” Kagan wrote in a footnote of her dissenting opinion. “And nothing could be more ‘suspicio[us]’ or ‘improp[er]’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on election night. To suggest otherwise, especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process.”
Election results aren't official until states certify them. Federal law allows the counting of absentee and provisional ballots to extend weeks after Election Day.
Projecting winners on election night is an unofficial action typically taken by the media. Deadlines to certify results vary by state. Electors meet Dec. 14 to formally cast their votes for president based on the winner of the popular votes in their states.
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"Take it from me," wrote Biden senior advisor Ron Klain, who worked as chief of staff for Gore. "The only way to avoid Bush v Gore II is to win by enough votes that 2020 never gets to the Supreme Court. Don't let the Court have this power: all of us, at the ballot box, need to decide this election."
Kavanaugh, a former associate counsel and staff secretary in Bush's White House, is one of three justices who worked for Bush's legal team on the Bush v. Gore case. Roberts, who was in private practice at the time, and Barrett also assisted. Barrett provided briefing assistance while working for a Washington law firm.
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