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.
I hypothesized an argument which I knew would not hold. For most of us, that would stop us from pursuing the matter further.
For Democrats, they're also aware of these things, but they put forth bogus arguments anyway, and then win. I guess their thinking is that by starting the ball rolling, who knows what could happen, at least they get more players in the game who can make things happen, and that's better than from where they were originally. Everything is an opportunity to create another opportunity.
That's why I think someone should make an argument like the one I did, once in a while, just to mix things up a bit.
-PJ
"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"
Why do you keep repeating this LIE?!?
It's an outrageous deception. New Jersey law was and is more specific and clear about ballot replacement and their deadlines. Torricelli passed the deadline. A very clear deadline that was written right into the text of the law.
Texas law is actually the less clear. Sparks rules both that 'ineligibility' only meant eligibility in the US Constitution, and then interpreted the residency requirement to be such that it couldnt even be assessed until after an election.
The interpretation here is murkier since Texas law clearly provides a valid replacement simply by a 'declaration of ineligibility'. Its not clear why, to me at least, someone cant say "hey, I'm ineligible" and show some proof/evidence and be done with it.