A deadlocked Supreme Court has refused emergency requests seeking to rein in extended deadlines for the receipt of ballots in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the Nov. 3 elections, but the court’s newest member did not participate in the decisions.
One of the reasons her supporters gave for expediting the U.S. Senate confirmation of the newest member of the court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was that doing so would make her available to break any potential 4–4 tie votes in important cases related to the ongoing elections. During her recent confirmation hearings, Barrett refused to discuss election-related cases or whether she would recuse herself from such cases.
