On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas unleashed on his fellow Supreme Court justices after they voted against taking up cases relating to ballot-integrity measures for the 2020 election and future elections.
“This is not a prescription for confidence,” Thomas said in his dissent on Monday, noting that “changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough.”
Clarence Thomas with the verbal smackdown pic.twitter.com/wm2NdurwBi
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
“That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future,” Thomas wrote. “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also dissented.
“If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear. If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic,” Thomas added.
“We are fortunate that many of the cases we have seen alleged only improper rule changes, not fraud,” Thomas went on to say. “But that observation provides only small comfort. An election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence. Also important is the assurance that fraud will not go undetected.”
Conservative reporter Jack Posobiec tweeted on the matter:
Thomas is also blasting the other members of the Court for refusing to take up the cases, pointing out they offer an opportunity to settle these issues for future elections as well rather than allow them to continue
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
Justice Thomas just agreed with all the arguments that Donald Trump made against widespread mail-in ballots
Are you going to accuse Clarence Thomas of spreading a "Big Lie," @JakeTapper?
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
Clarence Thomas makes it clear in his excellent dissent that holding high-integrity elections is a matter of "national importance" not just for 2020 but for our republic to function
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
Clarence Thomas' blistering dissent in the Pennsylvania case lays bare the fact that unelected officials should not be making election rules unilaterally
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
Clarence Thomas just gave @JoshShapiroPA a textual dressdown in this dissent.
Even cited the NY Times' own words to him:
"Absentee voting replaces the oversight of polling places with something akin to the honor system"
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 22, 2021
Dan McLaughlin with the National Review also took issue with the Supreme Court’s decision. Check out what he had to say:
Few things are worse for public confidence in elections than having the rules changed in the middle of the game (or after it). An epidemic of late-in-the-day changes to the rules was particularly corrosive in 2020. Courts are ill-equipped to referee those changes when partisan tempers are running hot. The Supreme Court just threw away its last opportunity to remedy that problem before the next election cycle.
