Straight from the Democrat playbook: if you can’t beat ‘em, just ignore the fact that you lost.
Today, the Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit’s horrible ruling in Ritter v. Migliori and along with it took the air out of the sails of Democrats who continue to cry wolf over commonsense election procedures. But after the loss, of course, Democrat consigliere Marc Elias and other Democrats attempted to soften the blow.
The Supreme Court’s order today means that Democrats can’t use an obscure provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) as a Hail Mary to challenge simple and widely supported mail ballot requirements––e.g., that the voter dates and signs the ballot and returns it on time.
NEW: The U.S. Supreme Court is sending Ritter v. Migliori — a case about the counting of Pennsylvania mail-in ballots that arrived on time but in envelopes missing dates written by voters — back to a lower court with instructions to dismiss ithttps://t.co/escpiqROur pic.twitter.com/5UkvU1FDC1
— Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) (@hansilowang) October 11, 2022
Since its inception over 50 years ago, the Materiality Provision of the VRA has never been interpreted to preclude simple mail ballot security features until the Third Circuit’s decision in Ritter v. Migliori. Yet, that didn’t prevent the Third Circuit from kowtowing to the demands of liberal activists who cry wolf each time a state tries to enforce simple voting requirements. The Third Circuit used this provision to strike down the requirement that Pennsylvania voters date their mail ballots.
LDF applauds #SCOTUS for vacating #RittervMigliori.
— Lawyers Democracy (@lawyersdf) October 11, 2022
The Materiality Provision of the #VRA has never been interpreted to mean what the Third Circuit held it to mean, and commonsense ballot safeguards are now protected from frivolous challenges under the Materiality Provision.
Today, the Supreme Court set things straight. But faced with the loss, Democrats like Marc Elias attempted to downplay how this decision severely undermines their far-fetched attempts to undermine election integrity.
"The Third Circuit opinion was not overturned on the merits. What does that mean? The Supreme Court didn't say that the that the Third Circuit got it wrong. Like, that's really important. They didn't say the Third Circuit got it wrong. What they said was that the Third Circuit opinion is moot. In other words, there's no longer a live case or controversy, so the opinion the case should just be the case should just be dismissed. But they didn't say it was wrong."
A more accurate take is that the Supreme Court’s order means that Democrats can no longer misuse the Materiality Provision to try and get what they want. Safeguards like requiring voters to date and sign their ballots are invaluable to safe and secure elections. Today, the Supreme Court made the right decision.