In Gore 2000, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that it was a violation of equal protection for voters in some counties to have a recount, but not in others. The Supreme Court ruled that for a state-wide office you had to either recount all of the votes or none of them.
Fast forward to 2002, and the US Supreme Court refused to intervene in the Torricelli case, perhaps being gun-shy from Gore v. Bush. Regardless, they said that it was a state matter and let the NJ State Supreme Court decide. New Jersey ignored their own election laws in the name of "giving voters a competitive" election.
Now it is 2006 in Texas, and Texas is ruling that DeLay must stay on the ballot. Given that we now have the New Jersey State Supreme Court as a precedent, can someone make the argument that since this election is for a Federal office that all states participate in, that the voting rules should be the same for all people voting for offices in the chamber, that is, that it's unfair for Texans to be made to vote under opposite conditions than New Jerseyans when the situations are so similar? In other words, it is not equal protection among the states for New Jersey to be allowed to ignore their own election laws for Senator while Texas is not allowed to do the same.
-PJ
The Constitution grants each state the broad rights to determine how it's representatives in the House and Senate are elected.
The election laws in New Jersey have zero bearing on Texas elections.
In 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that citizens of Florida were not being treated equally because a partial recount did not treat all the those in Florida equally under Florida law. There's no requirement that Florida's or Texas's elections laws be identical to other States.
New Jersey ignored their own election laws in the name of "giving voters a competitive" election.
I agree. However, NJ's law wasn't nearly as specific as the Texas law. When a court rules on an issue, overturning that ruling is supposed to require a heavy burden of proof that the original ruling isn't a possible interpretation of the law. The way the NJ law is written didn't give the US Supreme Court an overly solid foundation for saying that the NJ Supreme Court wasn't possibly a correct interpretation.
The Texas code is very explicit and states the only conditions in which a candidate's name can be replaced on the ballot.
In other words, it is not equal protection among the states for New Jersey to be allowed to ignore their own election laws for Senator while Texas is not allowed to do the same.
A bad ruling by the NJ Supreme Court on NJ election law is not a justification for a bad ruling on Texas election law. As strange as it may sound, the two aren't really related, other than they have to provide the same basic constitutional protections for voters and candidates. However, for the most part it's up to the individual states to determine how their representatives are elected.
The last thing I want to see happen is the States lose more control over their elections and have the federal government gain even more control over the States regarding how the States choose their own representatives.
Delay should be fighting for State's rights, not working to undermine them.