Should the Supreme Court take up the Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al. case (it's on the docket but that's not the same thing) here is a guide to possible outcomes from Ohio State's Edward B. Foley via Loyola University's School of Law.
Although written considerably prior to the election, it seems remarkably prescient:
This Article considers the possibility that a major dispute over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election could arise, even without foreign interference or some other extraordinary event, but rather just from the ordinary process of counting ballots. Building upon previous research on the “blue shift” phenomenon, whereby adjustments in vote tallies during the canvassing of returns tends to advantage Democratic candidates, it is easy to imagine a dispute arising if this kind of “blue shift” were consequential in the presidential race.Using examples from both Pennsylvania and Arizona, two states susceptible to significant “blue shifts” in previous elections, the article shows how the dispute could reach Congress, where it potentially might metastasize into a full-fledged constitutional crisis. The most frightening scenario is where the dispute remains unresolved on January 20, 2021, the date for the inauguration of the new presidential term, and the military is uncertain as to who is entitled to receive the nuclear codes as commander-in-chief. In order to avoid this risk, Congress should amend the relevant statute, 3 U.S.C. § 15.
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INTRODUCTION
It is Election Night 2020.This time it is all eyes on Pennsylvania, as whoever wins the Keystone State will win an Electoral College majority.Trump is ahead in the state by 20,000 votes, and he is tweeting “The race is over.Another four years to keep Making America Great Again.”The Associated Press(AP)and the networks have not yet declared Trump winner. Although 20,000 is a sizable lead, the yhave learned in recent years that numbers can shift before final, official certification of election results.They are afraid of “calling” the election for Trump, only to find themselves needing to retract the call—as they embarrassingly did twenty years earlier, in 2000.Trump’s Democratic opponent, _________(fill in the blank with whichever candidate you prefer; I will pick Elizabeth Warren since at the moment she is the front-runner according to prediction markets), is not conceding, claiming the race still too close to call. Both candidates end the night without going in front of the cameras.In the morning, new numbers show Trump’s lead starting to slip, and by noon it is below 20,000.Impatient, Trump holds an impromptu press conference and announces:....
....MUCH MORE (54 page PDF)
The Supreme Court has ordered the defendant states to respond by 3:00 pm Thursday December 10.
