Risk of the courts deciding the presidential election

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Donald Trump 

 

The courts have Trump's presidential fate in their hands Wolfgang Hansson  

 

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.  

 

Published 18.38  

 

Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Photo: Charlie Neibergall / AP  

 

The risk is great that it will be courts in the United States that will have to decide the presidential election next year. Not the voters.  

 

Now the Supreme Court will decide whether Donald Trump should be allowed to stand at all after a result of HD in the state of Colorado, which removed Trump from the ballot.  

 

Next year's election will be like no other. That thing is already done. Lawsuits and legal disputes will completely overshadow the normal election campaign.  

 

A rash in Colorado is the latest wrench thrown into the political machinery.  

 

The state's Supreme Court has ruled that Trump cannot run in Colorado's primary election, which will be held on March 5.  

 

The reason is that Trump is considered to have participated in a rebellion against the state through his actions before and during the storming of Congress on January 6, 2021. The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits anyone who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution and then participates in a rebellion to hold any elected office.

  

A decision that Trump will appeal and which thus ends up on the Supreme Court's table.

   

If the court chooses not to take up the case, the ruling in Colorado will be upheld and Trump will not be allowed to run. That, in turn, would mean that a number of other states could also choose to disqualify Trump by referring to the constitution. 

  

Already today, such a request has been submitted in 16 states. 

  

Wave master states  

 

In theory, it doesn't matter much if Trump is not on the ballot in Colorado because the state now usually has a clear Democratic majority. Even if Trump is allowed to run, he has little chance of winning in Colorado.

   

However, the situation is completely different in wave-master states such as Arizona and Michigan, where there are also ongoing attempts to port Trump from the ballot. They are two of the states that are expected to decide who gets to take the presidential oath in January 2025. Here 

 

The American electoral system where the winner takes home all the electoral votes in a state means that in practice only a few states decide the election. If Trump is banned from participating there, it will be difficult for him to win the election.  

 

The Supreme Court can choose to change Colorado's decision, but then it clearly interferes in the political battle and also goes against the literal interpretation of the US Constitution that the court's conservative majority usually adheres to.  

 

The court may also say that since Trump has not yet been convicted of sedition, that issue must first be decided in the lower courts.  

 

In practical terms, HD does not have long to decide the issue. Colorado needs time to print ballots. The names of those who will stand must be ready no later than 45 days before the election.  

 

Even before Colorado's decision to disqualify Trump, legal issues hung heavy over the election.  

 

Proceedings in the Colorado Supreme Court earlier in December. Photo: David Zalubowski/AP  

 

Immune to prosecution  

 

Trump stands accused in four different trials, the first of which is supposed to start on March 4, the day before the so-called Super Tuesday when primaries are decided in 15 different states. 

 

Jack Smith, the special prosecutor handling Trump's trial on charges of trying to change the 2020 election, has requested that the High Court examine Trump's claim that he is immune from all charges related to his time as president. 

 

Trump, for his part, demands that HD reject that request and first let lower courts have their say on the matter. The ex-president's tactic is to postpone all legal proceedings for as long as possible. If he is elected president in November, he can appoint an attorney general who will drop all the federal charges against Trump. Alternatively, pardon yourself. 

 

The Justice Department, which is controlled by the Biden administration, wants to speed up the trials so that the evidence presented against Trump can be weighed by voters when deciding whether or not to allow the real estate billionaire to return to the White House.  

 

If the trials are delayed, the American people do not have time to learn about these facts.  

 

The situation is extremely messy and uncertain because it is impossible to predict what decisions different courts will make.  

 

Anger can be triggered  

 

To that should be added that Trump leads by far in the opinion polls about becoming the Republican presidential candidate. Despite all the charges.  

 

One can imagine the anger that would be unleashed in the supporters if Trump is stopped.  

 

The situation reminds me of the 2000 presidential election when HD finally put an end to the fight between the Democrat Al Gore and the Republican George W Bush after weeks of legal disputes about ballots and other things where surprising rulings in lower courts kept replacing each other.  

 

Still, it appears as a mild westerly breeze for what lies ahead in the coming year.

 

In the end, it is not even certain that it will be Joe Biden and Donald Trump who are pitted against each other.