LogFAQs > #910492617

Paratroopa1 posted...

It took some work because every single article seems to leave it out, but it does seem that the decision was 6-2 and I was conflating it with a different ruling, not sure which one

Assuming you mean SCOTUS's decision not to intervene in the ND ruling... I'm actually not so sure.

WaPo calls it 6-2 but following its citation to it is to a small blurb they previously published that simply says they weren't going to hear it. SCOTUSBlog, where I went first, is a lot more cagey on the subject. They simply note that they'd need 5 of the 8 justices (since Kavanaugh was sitting it out) to agree to hear it and that they apparently failed to reach that. If it was truly 6-2 I imagine they'd say that given they also link to the literal order and Ginsberg's dissent so it's not like they're just guessing. ("apparently fell short" is their literal phrasing.)

My takeaway here is that we don't know the actual numbers here other than "didn't get to 5 to agree to hear the challenge" and that of those who did want to hear it we know Ginsberg and Kagan are among them because Ginsberg publicly dissented and Kagan joined it. There's no rule I know of stating the others had to issue an opinion for it, and indeed there's no "majority opinion" here. The literal order only contains Ginsberg's dissent (along with the topline of them not taking the challenge.)

As far as I know it could have been 6-2 or it could have been 4-4 and Sotomayor and Breyer simply didn't care to join the dissent for whatever reason. I agree that them staying out of it entirely makes it look 6-2 but this wasn't a decision in the sense that both sides argued before the court and they issued a ruling. They simply went "nope we don't want to hear this" and the lower ruling stands.

Coverage of this seems really screwed up/dumbed down though. SCOTUSBlog was the most informative but even then I kind of wanted a bit more but I suppose that's not entirely in their lane.

Edit: SCOTUSBlog link if you want to read their article on it: www.scotusblog.com/2018/10/court-stays-out-of-north-dakota-voting-dispute/
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?