I realize the Supreme Court does not choose the president but they essentially did in Gore v. Bush. That is the situation I refer to.
Almost no matter the election result, it is going before the court and a split court is a mess.
Not really. Bush had already been declared the winner. Gore's suit was over his wanting to hand-pick two or three counties in Florida favorable to him, in which to conduct recounts, to see if he could get enough new votes to change the result of the election. The Supreme Court's decision ended the recounts that had been going on, and Bush's victory was upheld. You can't hand an election to someone who has already won it legitimately.
What they did was stop the recount