The way the 2024 presidential election is proceeding, if the Democrats have their way, the November contest would take place almost entirely without input from voters.
First, Democrats have initiated four criminal trials against the 2024 Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump, hoping that at least some of the numerous indictments produce convictions that would either disqualify Trump as his party’s nominee or else mortally wound his campaign if he is nominated.
Second, the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court in Colorado and the Democrat Secretary of State in Maine have ruled that Trump, even if he is the nominee, cannot appear on their state’s presidential ballot. As reasoning for their decision, they have alleged that Trump’s actions in January 2021 violate the 14th Amendment’s ban on anyone serving in elected office who had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States – a clause that was intended to keep former Confederates out of the government after the Civil War.
Mr. Trump has not been indicted or convicted of this offense, nor does the language of the obscure passage, even if he had been, clearly make him eligible for exclusion.
Ultimately, the question of whether or not Democrat officials in states can unilaterally remove Trump from the ballot will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. While many legal scholars suggest the Court will not allow exclusion from the ballot, others suggest it might let each state decide the issue.
Should the latter happen, two outcomes are likely.
First, in states where Democrats control their supreme court, Mr. Trump, even if the GOP nominee, could be excluded from the ballot. This possibility has already caused some Republicans (in Texas, for example) to begin efforts to have President Biden, assuming he is the Democrat nominee, excluded from the presidential ballot in those states where Republicans control the supreme courts on the grounds that Biden’s border immigration policy amounts to an insurrection against the U.S. government.
This could mean that, except in a handful of states, one of the two major party nominees would not be on the ballot — and thus there would not be a true choice for voters in the presidential election.
In those states where both nominees would appear on the ballot, it is very likely they would be battleground states where the results would be very close. With all the new rules for early and mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, it is almost certain that the campaign of the candidate who is narrowly behind will go to court to dispute the election.
Thus, court rulings, and not voters, would decide the election. Should anyone think this would not be possible, it should be remembered that it was a court ruling that ultimately decided the 2000 presidential election.
A second distinct possibility is that, with significant third party candidates on the ballot, and many states with only one major party nominee on the ballot, frustrated voters would enable third party candidates to win a few states, resulting in no candidate having the necessary 270 electoral votes to be elected president.
This would then throw the 2024 presidential election into the U.S. House of Representatives, where the winner would be decided by each state, regardless of their population, having only one vote. In that case, the result might not reflect the popular vote at all.
Even if, because some congressional delegations are tied, the U.S. House fails to give one candidate the majority, the election would then go to the U.S. Senate, where the party with a majority would decide the presidential election, again not reflecting the will of the voters.
If that body, too, is tied, the very final decision would be made by the Supreme Court, which enabled this electoral crisis in the first place by allowing the states to decide who can appear on the ballot.
The above scenario is, of course, speculative, but if it appears to be only a pundit fantasy, it is only necessary to remember the aftermaths of the recent 2000, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections to see that a 2024 courtroom-decided election might take place if a major political party’s nominee is excluded from state presidential ballots.
Even if the Supreme Court does finally decide that a state cannot exclude a candidate or nominee from their presidential ballot, this national election cycle is already in very uncharted political territory, and its ultimate destination is very much in doubt.
Political seat belts will now be required until next November.
