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JWeinCom said:
curl-6 said:

As a non-American; any truth to claims the Supreme Court can overturn the election and reinstall Trump for a second term? It's all over Twitter but I can't tell if it's just bluster from extremists or if it can actually happen.

Because that sounds awfully like a coup, having an election decided by a panel of 9 people when one candidate leads by several states and millions of votes.

Lulz. No.

If the Court was truly a rogue agent that would invalidate huge amounts of votes with no legally cognizant argument... then maybe? But there's no indication the Supreme Court would do that. 

Even if they did, they can't install Trump as a president. The states would still have to certify the electoral votes. Georgia already certified their votes, Michigan and Arizona have announced their intent to certify. There's no precedent for the votes being decertified and recertified for the other candidate.

If hypothetically the Supreme Court could prevent states from certifying their votes in time or make Georgia uncertify, they still couldn't force them to certify electoral votes for Trump. If the vote is not certified in time, what actually happens is that we go to the Presidential succession act. In which case, Nancy Pelosi would actually become President as Speaker of the House. 

Could the Court try to force states to send in pro-Trump electors? Well, I guess... but then there's the question of if the state's will listen to them. The Supreme Court can't really force a state to do anything. If they made a decision that was so clearly irrational, states could refuse to comply. In which case what happens? I dunno. I guess whoever controls the military gets to make the call? If the military decides to obey them?

Long story short, we can never completely rule out the possibility that the American democracy will completely collapse, but there's no reason to suspect that will happen. The justices that are currently on the court have made some decisions I mightily disagree with, but they haven't done anything that's completely irrational simply to favor Trump. There's nothing that would lead one to suspect that the Supreme Court will try to override an election without evidence. And doing so would create a legitimacy crisis that I'm pretty sure they don't want to start. 

So I can't say definitively they won't try, the same way I can't say with 100% certainty that Trump won't find a magic lamp, rub it, and the Genie from Aladdin makes him President for 4 more years. But, both of those scenarios are about equally unlikely. 

Now why would Genie do something so horri- (Remembers Jafar).

Oh shit.