Absentee Ballots, Asylum, and Too Many A**holes to Count

**Leah Litman** (0:00)
Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. You're not alone if it feels like Groundhog Day, every morning when you read the news or even listen to what we're talking about here on Strict Scrutiny. And while it's overwhelming, seeing the trajectory our country is on, we all show up every day trying to find ways to make it better, to educate our neighbors, and to fight for democracy. Our friends at Americans United have been doing the same thing, day in and day out, for almost 80 years. This year alone, they filed three separate lawsuits against Trump's anti-Christian bias task force, which, spoiler alert, is anything but unbiased. AU has been tracking every mention of Christian nationalist rhetoric from this administration and partnering with many allied organizations to sue and protect our constitutional right of church-state separation, the right that protects all of our abilities to be who we are and live as we choose so long as we don't harm others. It's easy to get apathetic as we're all seeing and hearing these attacks on our freedoms every single day and watching a religion be weaponized for a power grab. Now isn't the time to give up, though. Now is the time to fight back against the growing authoritarianism in our country. Consider joining Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Learn more by visiting au.org/crooked because church-state separation protects us all.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:16)
Mr. Chief Justice, please report, it's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:29)
She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

**Kate Shaw** (1:59)
Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Kate Shaw.

**Leah Litman** (2:05)
I'm Leah Litman.

**Melissa Murray** (2:06)
And I'm Melissa Murray. And today, we're going to preview the cases that the court will hear during the March sitting, and then we'll briefly chat about some legal news.

**Leah Litman** (2:15)
So the March sitting is a two-week sitting jam-packed with big cases. The most discussed case of the term, Trump versus Barbara, which is a challenge to the birthright citizenship executive order, will be heard on Wednesday, April 1st. No, that's not an April Fool's Joke. That day also happens to be Sam Alito's birthday. That too is not an April Fool's Joke, although he might be. But the first week of the sitting has some significant cases that we want to pay close attention to, like Watson versus Republican National Committee.

**Melissa Murray** (2:44)
It's a pretty harrowing electoral landscape out there, and it is that electoral landscape that is the backdrop for Watson versus RNC. The president, as you know, has tried to strong arm states to tilt the electoral map in his favor. We know that at the court, Louisiana versus Calais may hamstring the remnants of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And depending on the court's timing in that case, it may actually have an impact on the 2026 midterms. We've also seen the president continue to push for the passage of the SAVE Act, which is now at the Senate. That act would likely overhaul and dramatically limit who can vote. So that's the landscape. It's all pretty grim.

**Kate Shaw** (3:25)
Okay, so Melissa set the stage and now enter Watson vs. RNC. The case challenges the long-standing practices regarding the counting of ballots that are cast by election day but received after election day. Now, for years, Republicans seemed pretty agnostic about absentee ballots, maybe because absentee ballots actually favored the GOP, at least in some cases. So, for example, enlisted military personnel, a group that historically tends to lean Republican, have long been entitled under federal law to use absentee ballots when they're deployed during an election cycle.

**Melissa Murray** (3:55)
But COVID and the 2020 election cycle really upended things. So, you will remember election night 2020 when very early on, it seemed like incumbent President Donald Trump was posting some big wins and would likely prevail. But as many voting rights experts predicted, the red wave was really a red mirage. Once absentee ballots were actually counted, the picture really began to shift. However, because it took a while to count all of those absentee ballots, the election wasn't called for Joe Biden until the weekend. That lag between election night, the counting of the ballots and the calling of the election fueled the GOP's fantasies of a stolen election and led to attacks on absentee ballots.