If it was really that easy to toss presidential candidates off the ballot, you'd see Red states tossing out Democratic candidates and Blue states tossing out Republican candidates, en masse. U.S. Supreme Court is never going to let things go down that road.
@volkris By the way, it was also a 4-3 decision. On such important matters, those are not reassuring on appeal in this context.
@lauren indeed, the three dissenters (who were appointed by Democrat governors, so aren't exactly off RVing with Thomas) expressed concerns over who gets to decide what constitutes an insurrection. That will very likely be a key argument Trump's lawyers take to the Supreme Court.
@kkeller The entire court was appointed by Democratic governors, so it's easy for Trump to claim bias, even with the 4-3 vote.
@lauren he would claim bias even if a GOP governor had appointed all seven justices, and his cult would believe it.
@kkeller Of course. But this situation very much plays into his hands. He's loving it.
@lauren but it doesn't though.
Elections are up to the states regardless of what the amendment says. The ability of any candidate to be on the ballot is 100% to the discretion of the state.
The Constitution does not say anything about who can be on a ballot.
To be clear, you can absolutely vote for somebody who is not qualified to be president. If you want to waste your vote like that, it's your vote to waste. You can vote for my dog if you want to.
It's up to the state as to who gets to be on their ballot for their own voting procedure.
The Constitution talks about who can be president. It's a completely different issue who can be on a state election ballot.
@volkris Get back to me on this after the Supreme Court refuses to take the case. Good luck with that.
@lauren Believe it or not, sometimes the Supreme Court does get it wrong.
They are after all only umpires.
And sometimes they admit that they are violating the law as they issue rulings that may or may not be respected.
But what we can say here is that states have legal authority to operate their own elections. Regardless of what the Supreme Court may or may not say about it, that is written in law, it is how the United States was set up to operate.
@volkris It's going to the Supreme Court. It involves a specific clause of the U.S. Constitution, as amended. SCOTUS has frequently intervened on state election issues, including multiple times recently. This will go to SCOTUS, they will rule Trump stays on the ballot, but Trump will have gotten another talking point claiming that it's all rigged against him.