Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. I'm John Carlo Conoparo. I'm Zach Smith. And welcome to

SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to,

and other things related to our favorite branch of government. Welcome back, G.C. How have you been?

Doing great, Zach. Happy to be back. How about you?

I'm happy to be back, too. And, you know, the court is back at work and is busy now, and so are we.

So are you ready to jump right into things today?

Let's do it. Excellent. Well, on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear two election-related lawsuits out of Pennsylvania.

Both of these cases asked the court to resolve essentially the same question, namely, can

entities other than a state's legislature, such as an executive branch official or the courts,

modify the rules governing federal

elections since the Constitution explicitly vests that authority with state legislatures.

If you'll recall in both of these cases, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered state officials

to accept and to count mail-in ballots up to three days after Election Day,

even though the Pennsylvania State Legislature had considered the issue and had explicitly

declined to adopt that approach and instead required all mail-in ballots to be received

by Election Day in order to be counted. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court

based its decision on a vague clause of the state constitution requiring that elections,

quote, shall be free and equal. Justice Thomas and Alito issued written dissents from the denial

of certiorari with Justice Gorsuch joining Justice Alito's dissent.

Justice Thomas' dissent in particular took his colleagues to task, saying that the court's

decision not to hear these cases was, quote, baffling because it leaves election law hidden

beneath a shroud of doubt. He emphasized that the voted issue in

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