I don’t know how to answer: you agree the states are supreme on this; and that any votes for a dead person ( or one kicked off the ticket) would be null and void.
That is precisely my point. Courts would refuse to ratify the “early votes” which would deny the Dems multiple thousands of votes and count only new ballots. Dems lose. Those people sue based on Bush v. Gore saying they were deprived. They are right. But the only situation is a whole NEW revote.
Despite the “elector tweak” I don’t think you can get around Bush v. Gore. All vote based on same ballot or none do.
In the case of early voting and a ticket change, either the votes are null or they count for the new ticket. So if you are right and the courts decide that the early votes arriving prior to the ticket change are null, first we have to figure out at which exact moment ballot segregation must occur. That's going to be a wonderful court fight.
Then we have redress, in which a revote is impossible due to the "same day" constitutional requirement. That means that there is no effective redress. This is where we see judges empretzeling the law to the point where it is not recognizable. I could see a huge court battle on toss-out versus count-it-as-the-new ticket.
This could make Bush v. Gore look like a Sunday picnic. I'm not sure how it would end up after a 4-4 Supreme Court tie.