Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-542_2c83.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

6 

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF PENNSYLVANIA v. 
DEGRAFFENREID 
THOMAS, J., dissenting 

governance so heavily depends.  If state officials have the 
authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear.  If 
not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the 
consequences become catastrophic.

B 
At  first  blush,  it  may  seem  reasonable  to  address  this 
question when it next arises.  After all, the 2020 election is 
now over, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision
was not outcome determinative for any federal election.

But whatever force that argument has in other contexts,
it fails in the context of elections.  For at least three reasons, 
the Judiciary is ill equipped to address problems—includ-
ing those caused by improper rule changes—through post-
election litigation. 

First,  postelection  litigation  is  truncated  by  firm  time-
lines.    That  is  especially  true  for  Presidential  elections,
which are governed by the Electoral Count Act, passed in
1887.  That Act sets federal elections for the day after the 
first Monday in November—last year, November 3.  See 3 
U. S. C.  §1.    Under  a  statutory  safe-harbor  provision,  a 
State has about five weeks to address all disputes and make 
a “final determination” of electors if it wants that decision 
to “be conclusive.”  §5.  Last year’s deadline fell on Decem-
ber  8,  and  the  Electoral  College  voted  just  six  days  later.
§7.  Five to six weeks for judicial testing is difficult enough 
for  straightforward  cases.    For  factually  complex  cases, 
compressing  discovery,  testimony,  and  appeals  into  this 
timeline is virtually impossible.

Second, this timeframe imposes especially daunting con-
straints when combined with the expanded use of mail-in
ballots.  Voting by mail was traditionally limited to voters 
who  had  defined,  well-documented  reasons  to  be  absent. 
See, e.g., Moreton, Note, Voting by Mail, 58 S. Cal. L. Rev. 
1261,  1261–1264  (1985).    In  recent  years,  however,  many
States have become more permissive, a trend greatly accel-
erated by COVID–19.  In Pennsylvania, for example, mail-