Will Baude

The owl is a bird of prey, but it's smart and wise and discerning.

So I think I'm a smart hawk.

Okay, so Mike Bost is a congressman in Illinois, a Republican, which makes him an endangered species, even more than the eagle.

And he thinks that it is illegal that the state of Illinois counts ballots received after Election Day.

This is, recall, something that the Fifth Circuit, in an opinion by Andy Oldham, has said is illegal, I think.

And there's either a superstition pending or maybe even granted on the merits, I forget.

But he wants to complain that they are counting ballots received after Election Day and they should stop, not do that, and only count ballots received before Election Day.

In this case, we'll not resolve that question.

He sued in the Seventh Circuit.

He sued, and in the Seventh Circuit, they said he has no standing.

And the Supreme Court today disagreed and says he does have standing.

So maybe eventually someday we'll find out if he's right.

Right.

So it's also a little confusing.

Of course, election cases are always confusing from a matter of standing.

Like, what election are we even talking about?

I believe when the lawsuit was filed, he was making a claim of the upcoming 2022 election.

There have since been elections in 2024.

Now we're kind of talking about the election in 2026.

You might have an intuition that the 2022 election and the 2024 election are over.