'Nightmare scenario' if Supreme Court approves 'oddball' conservative election changes: analyst

According to CNN's Zachary Wolf, the Supreme Court could throw the 2024 presidential election into total chaos if they give their blessing to an "oddball" legal theory proposed by the same conservatives who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

At issue, while the House and Senate work on a bill that would clarify how votes from the states are tabulated and ways in which they can be contested, is a legal theory that suggests the federal government can't control how state legislatures run and report their elections and blocks the courts from stepping in.

As Wolf wrote, "The Supreme Court, meanwhile, could be headed in the direction of conjuring anti-democratic nightmares if its conservative majority chooses to bless part of the oddball legal theory behind that very same push to overturn the 2020 election," before adding, "SomeRepublican lawmakers and the lawyer who conjured then-PresidentDonald Trump's effort to stay in power despite the 2020 election results argue that the Constitution actually suggests state legislatures are independent and disembodied from the rest of their governments to rule over federal elections in their states without state court review."

"The case at hand, Moore v. Harper, has to do with North Carolina's new congressional map, which was gerrymandered by the state's GOP legislature and then redrawn by the state's courts -- which made the map more favorable to Democrats," he wrote. "Since the Constitution doesn't specifically say state courts can oversee state legislatures on the matter, supporters of the idea want legislatures to have new power over congressional map."

According to Eliza Sweren-Becker of the Brennan Center for Justice, a fierce critic of the so-called "independent state legislature theory," the Supreme Court could introduce chaos into every national election if they agree with the theory.

Saying the new rules would lead to "undemocratic shenanigans," she added, "We've seen over the past year more states introducing, and in some instances passing, legislation that would create the risk of election sabotage and election interference."

According to Wolf, "That would be the nightmare scenario: The House and Senate limit their own ability to question election results put forward by states, and the Supreme Court gives state legislatures new power to engage in election shenanigans."