USA Today/Gannett: Supreme Court pressed to give state legislatures more power to oversee federal elections

WASHINGTON – A month after millions of Americans cast their vote in a midterm election that was mostly free from glitches, the Supreme Court will wrestle with a case Wednesday that some advocates – both liberal and conservative – fear could upend how federal elections are run, starting with the 2024 presidential contest.

From the hours that polling locations remain open, to voter ID requirements to the way lawmakers divvy up neighborhoods into congressional districts every decade, the court’s decision could give legislatures in each state far more power to set the rules for federal elections by removing the ability of state courts to review and strike their laws down.

The case, Moore v. Harper, arrives at the nation’s highest court at a time when polls indicate that some Americans are losing faith in elections after hearing false claims of widespread voter fraud from former President Donald Trump and his allies for years.

At the center of the litigation is North Carolina’s congressional map, which the state’s supreme court rejected in February because it gave the GOP an advantage the court said violated the state constitution. Republican lawmakers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that state courts didn’t have the power to strike down or redraw the map. That’s based on a clause in the U.S. Constitution that gives authority to legislatures and to Congress to regulate federal elections but makes no  mention of state courts.

Critics say the implications of that legal theory – known as the independent state legislature doctrine – could be sweeping, allowing state legislatures that are often controlled by one party to manipulate the rules of federal elections in ways that only benefit them.

“To give absolute power to one branch of government, unbound by state constitutions, would lead us down a dangerous road to tyranny,” asserted Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause, which is opposing the position of the North Carolina GOP lawmakers in the case.