Experts think Supreme Court will stay out of 2024 election

By 
 October 29, 2024

Several judicial experts told Fox News Digital on Monday that they think the Supreme Court is likely to stay out of the 2024 Presidential election unless something really egregious happens.

“It’s got to be super, super close,” Jason Torchinsky, partner at Holtzman Vogel, said. “If you look at the history of post-election litigation, the only places where it has been successfully outcome-determinative really are in places where the vote is just super close.”

“If there’s a real issue, the Court will take it. If it’s something that the Court doesn’t think merits a higher-level view, then they’ll summarily affirm,” Torchinsky said.

The Electoral Count Act allows parties to request an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court after the issue is heard by a district court with a three-judge panel, but the scope of what can be brought up under the act is narrow.

"Serious violations"

“It does kind of create a new route into the federal court for a specific limited set of issues being raised under the Electoral Count Act,” said Greg Teufel, founder of OGC Law. “There are very limited issues that can be raised under that Act, though. So it’s not a broad expansion or increase in the likelihood of litigation, either in federal courts or litigation that reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, under the Electoral Reform Act.”

For the high court to hear the case, “there would have to be significant and provable fraud allegations or other serious violations of the law in the manner that elections are conducted or votes are processed,” Teufel said.

While the court's makeup is conservative, some experts think it would be less likely for it to intervene to avoid the perception of bias.

“I think that there’s now a sensitivity among the nine justices not to get involved unless it were absolutely necessary,” John Hardin Young, counsel at Sandler Reiff, said. “There is, I think, somewhat of a bias in the majority on the Supreme Court to get involved if they believe that process is being corrupted or people who aren’t following the rules because the majority is, I think, very sensitive to democracy depending on people following the rules.”

Will Conservative court side with Republicans?

If the court does have to get involved, it's likely to benefit Republicans since the court is strongly conservative.

"In terms of the makeup of the court, there's no question you've got six appointees of Republican judges at this point," Joseph Burns, partner at Holtzman Vogel, said. "And these are generally people who, I think, are going to interpret what needs to be interpreted, whether it's a state statute or a federal statute. Their general philosophy is to adhere as closely as possible to the words of the statute."

"You have a more conservative-minded Supreme Court in that respect," Burns continued. "And you certainly have Republicans generally making those types of arguments about courts interpreting statutes or state constitutions, for instance, in a stricter manner. So I think in that respect, given the arguments that each side generally makes, Republicans would be in better shape."

But the court has surprised Republicans more than once by ruling in surprising ways.

The first major voting fraud attempts were exposed in Pennsylvania on Friday when election officials revealed that 2,500 fraudulent voter registration applications were turned in in Lancaster County, with more suspected in other counties there.

Trump is barely ahead in the state, so any level of fraud could mean the difference in who wins.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson