"In an unsigned decision with no noted dissents, the justices warned of 'electoral chaos' if the state were to change course so close to the election and use the 2025 map."

"The election is not merely upcoming; it has already started. Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed. Absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting,” according to the five-page decision."

From "Supreme Court Once Again Blocks Republican-Backed Voting Map in Missouri/A federal appeals court had sided with Republicans seeking to use redrawn congressional district boundaries to give their party an advantage in the midterms elections" (NYT).

Note: All NYT links are gift links now. I'm not going to write "gift link" next to every NYT link anymore. Just know they are gift links. I'm not going to keep repeating myself, and there's also no need for you to repeat the complaint that the NYT requires you to register with them to get the access they're offering free. You can't have everything you want. What in this world is completely free?

"If the question of the Postal Service’s power were before us in something other than the context of an ultra vires claim..."

".... the Government’s argument would present a difficult question. But here the question is different. In order to assert an ultra vires claim, the plaintiffs must show that the challenged regulation of envelopes here is 'entirely "in excess"' of the power to govern collecting, handling, transporting, delivering, forwarding, and returning of mail. The same is true of the requirement to pass along information about each recipient of ballot mail. At the very least, the Postal Service did not act '"contrary to a specific prohibition"' in enacting the rule... [T]he plaintiff States’ statutory claim is based on a contestable reading of a broadly drawn statute empowering the Postal Service to regulate the mail."

Writes Justice Alito, dissenting, joined by Justice Thomas, in United States Postal Service v. California.

Here's the NYT: "Two Conservative Justices Would Have Allowed Trump’s Mail-In Ballot Rules/Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, called the challenge to the restrictions a 'Hail Mary pass' that was unlikely to prevail because of the Postal Service’s broad authority to regulate the mail" (gift link).

"The emergency request marks the latest turn in a dizzying legal fight over mail-in voting, even as states begin distributing mail-in ballots to voters."

"The upshot has become clear in recent days: It will be the Supreme Court that has the final say on President Trump’s plans to restrict mail voting in the midterms. It’s unclear how fast the justices will move and announce a ruling.... The Trump administration had already filed emergency request to the justices challenging a shorter-term pause [the trial judge] had imposed on the plan. But the trial court judge acted to extend her freeze before the justices ruled, necessitating a new request from the administration for Supreme Court action...."

I'm reading "Trump Administration Again Asks Supreme Court to Allow Mail Voting Restrictions/The filing puts the legality of the president’s push to impose limits on mail voting squarely before the justices even as states begin sending out ballots" (NYT gift link).

"Through much of the 19th century, noncitizen voting expanded alongside U.S. territorial gains..."

"(the government offered the vote to Europeans who helped dispossess Indians and colonize the West). But in the mid- to late 1800s, immigrants started to become scapegoats for changes that native-born Americans saw as threatening.... Confederates banned immigrant suffrage during the Civil War because they thought migrating Europeans were anti-slavery, while northern states rolled back voting rights in reaction to waves of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, which they associated with crime. By 1926, no state let noncitizens vote in federal elections. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, making noncitizen voting in federal elections a crime...."

Writes Zak Cheney-Rice, in "The Fear of Noncitizen Voting/For Trump, it is the death of America. For liberals, 'Woke 1' excess. Why is noncitizen voting so terrifying?" (New York Magazine).

NBC’s Steve Kornacki at a loss for words.

NBC’s Steve Kornacki reacts to the USB drives that were missing election data in Wisconsin.

“Are you serious? They have to do… God… Okay…” pic.twitter.com/Byj6KQJBX9

— Brandon Doggett (@brandondoggett) August 12, 2026

The race was close, but Francesca Hong has conceded and the risk of a democratic socialist Governor for Wisconsin is over.

At least this time around.

Here's the NYT report (gift link):

My questions: 

• What proportion of the votes for Hong were supporters of the Republican candidate Tom Tiffany — voters who thought Hong would be a weak opponent for him? It was an open primary, and I saw some open encouragement of this behavior. Tiffany obviously had his nomination sewn up.  You can see that David Crowley only won by about 3,000 votes. How much larger would his margin of victory have been without those insincere strategic votes for Hong?

• Why did Hong concede so quickly, with such a narrow margin? Why not wait at least until all the votes are in? Why not ask for a recount? She's entitled to a recount if the margin is 1% or less, but it's only paid for by the state if it's less than 0.25%. To drag out the process after the primary would help Tiffany. That's good reason not to indulge in a recount, but why not wait until all 100% of the votes are counted? She conceded when it was less than 95%.

• Why were the polls so bad?! The final Marquette poll, from July 22–27, released July 29, had Hong at 38% and Crowley at 7%. There was also another candidate at 16% (Barnes), but he dropped out. Still, giving all the Barnes votes to Crowley would only put Crowley at 23%. That 38% for Hong looked awfully strong. But I wouldn't assume the polls got it wrong. The polls inspired a lot of people to attack Hong, making her look unusually foolish and driving a lot of Democrats into voting for what is practical and strategic and not for the radical who excited them so much.

• Speaking of exciting radicals in Wisconsin, these votes were falling into place as a highly visible and emotional street protest was escalating in Madison after the death of Corey Ruiz. Though Ruiz had apparently attacked the police with a knife, Hong quickly denounced his killing as "a state-sanctioned… execution." Those protests went on for 2 weeks, mostly during the period when there were no new polls. How much did those impassioned protests turn Wisconsin voters against Hong?

***

As for me, I was going to sit this one out, but in the end I did go over to the Congregational Church and cast a vote.

I invite you to persuade me to go over and vote in the Wisconsin primary today.

Observing myself, I believe I am abstaining. 

Of course, as I've said many times, I'm a big believer in the right to not to vote. It's like the right not to speak. Or the right not to profess any religion.

UPDATE:

"[I]t is entirely possible that we will run a repeat of 2020, when the outcome of a narrow election was clouded by accusations of fraud, and MAGA was hellbent on retaining control."

"In 2026, however, we face a president who has surrounded himself with sycophants and yes men, with years left in a term that has already been marked by grotesque lawlessness and abuses of power."

Writes David French, in "This Is What’s Keeping Me Up at Night" (NYT gift link).

"House Republicans on Wednesday muscled through a $95 billion budget framework that includes President Donald Trump’s request to fund the Iran war..."

"... farm aid and grants for states to encourage voter ID requirements. The resolution’s slim 216-214 passage comes after the White House and House GOP leaders for weeks worked to corral rank-and-file Republicans in support of the measure. Lawmakers voiced concerns about various components of the third package. Republican leaders are using the budget reconciliation process to get around a Democratic filibuster in the Senate...."

From "House Republicans Ram Through Reconciliation 3.0 Despite Little Senate Buy-in/The framework includes money for defense, farm assistance and changes to voting laws" (NOTUS).

"What Trump did NOT do was even purport to show a single ineligible voter voted in the 2020 election, or..."

"... that any voting machines were actually compromised, voting machines or voter registration databases breached, or election results inaccurately reported. Overall, this was an underwhelming announcement delivered with low energy that changes nothing about how state and local election administrators should run elections. If his government had actual evidence of noncitizen voting, there would be indictments; Trump has been hounding US attorneys to bring such cases, and the fact that he hasn’t shows that these claims likely have no legs.... He also did not offer anything new by way of policy proposals...."

Writes Rick Hasen, in "Trump’s Underwhelming Announcement on Voting Does Not Even Purport to Show That Any Illegal Votes Were Cast in the 2020 Election or That Voting Machines Have Been Hacked or Vote Totals Inaccurate; He Also Made a Pitch to Pass the SAVE America Act But Offered No New Federal Mandates" (Election Law Blog).

See for yourself: 

He started off as if he really wanted to give a State of the Union speech:

"Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are urging the nation’s top spy chiefs to stop President Donald Trump if he tries to declassify cherry-picked intelligence material that unfairly sows doubt about the 2020 election..."

“.... during his primetime address Thursday evening.... Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee fear the president’s true aim is to justify a federal power grab over America’s voting infrastructure ahead of the midterms.... The letter comes one day after Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, refused to say during his Senate confirmation hearing that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote — alarming Democrats who thought highly of Clayton heading into the day. Last week, Trump also fired the two Democratic commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission.... In its after-action report on the 2020 election, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that China 'considered but did not deploy' any attempts [sic] to influence voter perceptions, but acknowledged that some intelligence community analysts disagreed. Vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines have long been known to election officials, who argue they can be mitigated...."

Politico reports, in "House Dems warn of weaponized intel ahead of Trump’s speech/In a letter sent Thursday, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee expressed concern Trump will selectively declassify spy material to 'relitigiate [sic] debunked 2020 election conspiracies.'"

Politico has a second article portraying Republicans as anxious about the speech: "'Scared s–tless': Republicans brace for Trump’s primetime speech/Rehashing grievances about the 2020 election could motivate the Republican base and press GOP lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act": "'The people I talk to are scared shitless,' said a former Trump administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. 'It’s not scared shitless about the text of what he’s going to say, it’s, what does he add to the text?'"

Waiting on the Supreme Court.

Following the live chat at SCOTUSblog: "The cases still to be decided: birthright citizenship; the president’s power to fire the heads of independent agencies; the transgender athletes cases; two election law disputes; and whether a geofence warrant violated the 4th Amendment."

The full text of new opinions will be available here, at the Court's website.

ADDED: We have Watson v. RNC:  "The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day." That's written by Justice Barrett and joined by the Chief and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. Dissenting are Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.

Next is Chatrie v. United States: "Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information. Justice Kagan writes the majority opinion, joined by the Chief and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Jackson. Justice Gorsuch writes a concurring opinion, and Justice Alito has a dissent joined by Thomas and Barrett. From the Kagan opinion:

Consider just a few trips that a person is apt to think “indisputably private”: to “the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, [or] the by-the-hour motel.” And unlike a GPS device, Location History enables police officers to focus on precisely those sites—to see, in a given time block, who shows up. Similarly, Location History—even two hours of it—allows officers to target one-off events of potential interest: a gun show, say, or a political rally....

From the Gorsuch concurrence:

I might have hoped that the Court would have pursued a more traditional approach to the Fourth Amendment today. But look carefully and you will see hints of it at work even in the Court’s opinion. Why is the Court so protective of Location History data, email, and electronically stored photos and calendars? Because, it turns out, “a user reasonably understands” all those things “as his own.” Put another way, they are his effects. And why does the Court hold Mr. Chatrie’s effects protected by the Fourth Amendment even though a third party stores them? Because, the Court says, those effects remain his “even though [they are] stored on Google’s servers.” Put another way, entrusting your effects to a third party for certain agreed purposes doesn’t mean they are no longer yours....

Now, we get the last opinions of the day, Cook and Slaughter, the cases about the President's power to fire heads of independent agencies. David Lat at SCOTUSblog: "In terms of their bottom lines at least, Slaughter and Cook came out as many expected. 'The Fed is different' carried the day."

Is it terrible or is that a huge loophole?

Terrible https://t.co/geK2swDv82

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2026

The litigation is already pending: "Lawsuits pending at Virginia Supreme Court over redistricting referendum" (ABC 13 News). There are 3 lawsuits, 2 of which challenge the language. The vote was allowed to go through, but we'll see what the court says. I can see how one might argue that the voters didn’t approve of anything that doesn’t "restore fairness" and the plan put forward by the Democrats was designed for the purpose of advancing the party— not to restore fairness — so the voters did not approve it.

"President Trump, who has long railed against mail-in voting — including on Monday, when he called it 'mail-in-cheating' — used the method himself in a Florida special election scheduled to take place on Tuesday."

I'm reading "Trump, Who Calls Mail-in Voting ‘Cheating,’ Just Voted by Mail/President Trump has long fixated on mail-in voting to bolster his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. But he recently used the method in a Florida special election."

What do you think?

It's hypocrisy

It's not hypocrisy

 

pollcode.com free polls

"I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election, the last election."

BREAKING: Newsom at Davos: "There's no rule of law. It's the rule of Don... I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election, the last election. Tried to light democracy on fire, and then pardoned everyone that participated in that."

He just hit the nail in the head here.… pic.twitter.com/ETAqF9SjX4

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) January 22, 2026

"I cannot join the Court’s creation of a bespoke standing rule for candidates. Elections are important, but so are many things in life."

Writes Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Elena Kagan, in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, a case issued this morning.

Elections are important, but so are many things in life. We have always held candidates to the same standards as any other litigant.

"The country should not seek a mere boost in the number of children born or in the monetary support that parents receive."

"Yes, the country needs more children. But it matters how and to whom children are born. Society depends on men and women who want to form families, that is, who freely want to marry, and then freely bear and nurture children."

Said a report from the Heritage Foundation called "Saving America by Saving the Family," quoted in "Heritage paper on families calls for ‘marriage bootcamp,’ more babies/The conservative think tank aims to boost U.S. marriage and birth rates through recommendations to discourage online dating, restrict pornography, create tax credits for bigger families and more" (WaPo).

From the article: "A previous draft obtained by The Post, dated in October, also included an appendix of ideas that Heritage did not endorse but said were offered ‘in the spirit of furthering debate and innovative thinking on family policy.'...

"The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis/The party is bleeding support beyond the ballot box, a new analysis shows."

That's the headline in the lead article at the NYT this morning. 

Here's a free access link. Excerpt:

There are still more Democrats registered nationwide than Republicans, partly because of big blue states like California allow people to register by party, while red states like Texas do not. But the trajectory is troublesome for Democrats, and there are growing tensions over what to do about it. Democrats went from nearly an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 in those places with partisan registration, to just over a 6-percentage-point edge in 2024.... 

It must be quite a crisis or I don't think the NYT would openly call it a crisis. They even used my favorite word, "flummox": "... Democrats are divided and flummoxed over what to do."

A big part of the problem is that they can't use nonprofits the way they used to:

"Angry Trump Accidentally Blurts Out Unnerving New Plot to Rig Midterms/Donald Trump just gave away his own game."

That's a headline at The New Republic that made me click, and I know I shouldn't reward TNR for its unnerving new plot to rig the attention market, but let's try to understand what "Angry Trump" supposedly has in mind.

I read this article so you don't have to. You already know the context, Trump's Truth Social Post about mail-in voting, which we talked about yesterday, here.

The TNR author, Greg Sargent, is calling attention to the fact that Trump mentioned the 2026 midterms. Trump said he'd sign an executive order "to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections." That's it. That's how "Donald Trump just gave away his own game." He revealed that he saw a causal relationship between his proposed reforms and the coming elections. Of course, Trump doesn't say he wants to rig the midterms for the Republicans. He's claiming to un-rig the elections, and he says "Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM."

Now one might try to say that the elections are not currently rigged. Here's Sargent:

There is overwhelming evidence that any fraud in mail balloting is limited to nonexistent. Indeed, it’s now beyond obvious that the pretext is the thing to watch.

I love when the author says something is "beyond obvious" and I can't even understand what he's talking about, but let's read on: 

"President Trump said on Truth Social on Monday that he would 'lead a movement' to get rid of mail-in ballots and would sign an executive order..."

"... to help bring what he described as honesty to the 2026 midterm elections. Mr. Trump has long opposed mail-in voting, though Republicans made electoral gains in 2024 by embracing the practice."

Says the NYT.

I'm skeptical of the implication in that last sentence, that mail-in voting is better for Republicans than it is for Democrats. I think the 2024 gains only show that if there is mail-in voting, Republicans will do better if they encourage their supporters to use that method, rather than to wait for Election Day and to vote in person. But I would imagine that if general mail-in voting is eliminated and most people can only vote in person, Republicans might be even better off. Why would that be? Some people will say, because mail-in voting is used to cheat in various ways. Whatever the extent of the cheating, there's also the energy and enthusiasm it takes to vote in person. Shouldn't both parties insist that they don't want to cheat, only to keep the other side from cheating, and claim that their supporters are strongly committed and not lackadaisical? 

Here's the full text of Trump's Truth Social Post: