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MOORE v. CIRCOSTA 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

day.  N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §163–231(b)(2)b (2019). 
  Despite  the  General  Assembly’s  considered  judgment 
about  the  appropriate  response  to  COVID,  other  state 
actors—including  the  State  Board  of  Elections—recently 
chose to issue their own additional and supplemental set of 
amendments  to  state  election  laws.    Relevant  here,  they 
purported to extend the absentee ballot receipt deadline by 
six days, up to November 12. 
  That last part should sound familiar.  Just days ago, this 
Court  rejected  a  similar  effort  to  rewrite  a  state  legisla-
ture’s election deadlines.  Wisconsin (like North Carolina) 
has a ballot receipt deadline enshrined in statute.  All the 
same, a federal district court decided to order Wisconsin to 
extend its deadline by six days.  The Seventh Circuit stayed 
that ruling, and we agreed with its disposition.  For many 
of  the  same  reasons  I  believe  that  decision  was  correct,  I 
believe we should stay the Board’s action here.  See Demo-
cratic  National  Committee  v.  Wisconsin  State  Legislature, 
592  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2020)  (GORSUCH,  J.,  concurring).    In 
some respects, this case may be even more egregious, given 
that a state court and the Board worked together to over-
ride a carefully tailored legislative response to COVID.  In-
deed, the president pro tempore of the North Carolina Sen-
ate  and  the  speaker  of  its  House  of  Representatives  have 
intervened on behalf of the General Assembly to oppose re-
visions to its work. 
  The  parties  before  us  all  acknowledge  that,  under  the 
Federal  Constitution,  only  the  state  “Legislature”  and 
“Congress” may prescribe “[t]he Times, Places and Manner 
of holding Elections.”  Art. I, §4, cl. 1.  Everyone agrees, too, 
that  the  North  Carolina  Constitution  expressly  vests  all 
legislative power in the General Assembly, not the Board or 
anyone else.  N. C. Const., Art. II, §1; cf. N. C. Const., Art. 
I, §6.  So we need not go rifling through state law to under-
stand  the  Board’s  permissible  role  in  (re)writing  election 
laws.  All we need to know about its authority to override