Supreme Court vacancy 'big deal' for potential contested election: HuffPost reporter Paul Blumenthal
In a Yahoo Finance 2020 Election Special, HuffPost reporter Paul Blumenthal discuss the effects of former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death on the upcoming presidential election.
Video Transcript
PAUL BLUMENTHAL: We're headed into an election where Donald Trump has said that he can't lose unless it's a rigged or fraudulent vote, and he says this without any evidence, of course. But what this means is that he could wind up challenging, say, whether certain absentee ballots should be counted that come in after Election Day or that need to be counted because they come in late on Election Day. And what this means is this could go to the court system, could go to the Supreme Court. And with a 5-3 court, eight total justices, that could wind up in a 4-4 tie, potentially.
So I mean, this has already come up among Republicans, who use this point to say that's why we need to appoint a justice before the election. But of course, the same number of justices were in place in 2016 before the election, where Trump was also saying that he could only lose if there was a rigged, fraudulent election. So I mean, the lack of a fourth vote, especially on the liberal bloc, is a big deal for what could be another potential Bush v. Gore type situation.
