Vote Suppression And Strategic Voting

Hasen on the Supreme Court refusing to intervene in both North Carolina (allowing a vote suppression law to be enforced) and Wisconsin (preventing a vote suppression law from being enforced):

Here is the order, and judged by the dissent of Justice Alito, joined by Scalia and Thomas, the basis was the Purcell objection, the proximity to the upcoming election and the risk of electoral chaos.

Not only did the apparent Kagan/Breyer strategy I explained last night to keep the Chief and Kennedy likely work, here’s something odd: I probably agree with the votes on all three of the decisions of the Court in the election cases: OH, NC, and WI.  Three in a row for me and the Court—unheard of.

If applied fairly, the Purcell principle is one I can live with; last minute changes to the election laws ordered by the courts are problematic. The problems associated Wisconsin are much more severe than they would be with North Carolina, but it’s at least a reasonable outcome, and stopping the vote suppression laws in all cases obviously wouldn’t have had the votes.

This also reinforces my belief that Kagan and Breyer would not have been the swing vote to re-write the Medicaid expansion.