Is SCOTUS Sick of Third World Elections? Sounds Like It…

Monday’s commentary suggests help is on the way - but how much?

Announcement: Local grassroots organizations are sending copies of The American War on Election Corruption, my new book, to their legislative members. If you’re interested in sponsoring for your state, contact me at skeshel@protonmail.com.

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I will open today’s piece with a half-apology. This newsletter is read in 130 countries, including some categorized as “Third World.” So when I refer to anything with the adjective of “Third World,” I should point out that almost all of these nations run elections that are more transparent and trustworthy than those held in the United States.

This descriptor is used to describe malaise not related to elections that make so many of those Third World nations terrible or unsafe places to live. And if America doesn’t get its crap together with elections, now that we are almost 30% of the way through Trump’s term, then it is all downhill from here. Perhaps when we get there to rock bottom, we will begin counting painted rocks in the town square like many sub-Saharan African nations do for one purpose - to ensure the people trust the results of the elections held there.

Colonel (USAF, Ret.) Shawn Smith has been at the election integrity fight for years - at least as long as I have. We bumped into each other on X at the beginning of the week, and I saw that he was expressing concern over Watson v. Republican National Committee, which I profiled on Monday. Shawn’s concern was that the RNC’s suit over Mississippi’s laws permitting counting of late-arriving ballots didn’t cut deep enough, and should have done more to handle other forms of time-related cheating - in my view, the massive window of time (7 weeks in Pennsylvania, for instance) in which mail-in ballots can be gathered like Easter eggs and dumped in drop boxes, overwhelming the Republican count that is typically cast at a much higher rate in person and over a much shorter period.

The timing of my Monday piece was perfect, hitting your inboxes right as the conservative justices eviscerated state laws that conflict with federal ones. Here are the federal laws the plaintiffs are using to make sanity prevail, which I listed on Monday:

2 USC Section 7 - The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.

2 USC Section 1 - At the regular election held in any State next preceding the expiration of the term for which any Senator was elected to represent such State in Congress, at which election a Representative to Congress is regularly by law to be chosen, a United States Senator from said State shall be elected by the people thereof for the term commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.

3 USC Section 1 - The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on election day, in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.

A few highlights from Monday’s hearing before SCOTUS have me optimistic the justices are going to shred, once and for all, the practice of counting “late-arriving” ballots - which are the election equivalent of steel chair shots to the back of the head when the referee “isn’t looking”: