[tomder55]

The issue was mail in ballot deadlines. Rep Mike Bost of Illinois and 2 electors challenged election results because state law allowed for the counting of mail in ballots received up to 2 weeks after election day.

They claimed the counting of these “untimely” ballots dilutes their votes and forces them to expend additional campaign resources to monitor ballot counting for two weeks after Election Day.

The district court dismissed the case ;not on the merits of the case ;but instead said the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the law. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Appeals court affirmed the decision.

A very strange position for the court to take since the candidates indeed have a stake in the outcome.

In a 7-2 decision ;with the usual suspects (Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson) dissenting .

Chief Justice Roberts ;acting as 'Captain Obvious '; wrote the decision.

Under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must have a “personal stake” in a case to have standing to sue. FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367, 379 (2024). They must, in other words, be able to answer a basic question: “ ‘What’s it to you?’ ” A. Scalia, The Doctrine of Standing as an Essential Element of the Separation of Powers, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 881, 882 (1983). Congressman Bost has an obvious answer: He is a candidate for office. And a candidate has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election.[3]

"As a candidate for office, Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election."

Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections | 607 U.S. ___ (2026) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center

Ketanji Brown Jackson is a rambling disjointed response that you can read if you choose. Basically she says that this violates past precedents and opens the door for more candidates to challenge election results . She also made the preposterous claim that this gives more standing to a candidate that the voting public . (huh ????????)

What she doesn't say is that the flaw is in the allowing the counting of mail in ballots received past the deadline.
Her real issue is that this opens the door for more challenges against flexible voting rules that favor Democratic liberal candidates.

Roberts opinion countered her dissent very well.

“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns.” That candidate interest in protecting the integrity and fairness of the electoral process “is in no sense ‘common to all members of the public,’” Roberts asserted. Although the public also has an interest in the integrity of elections, the candidate’s interest “differs in kind.” An unfair election “plainly affects those who compete for the support of the people in a different way than it affects the people who lend their support,” Roberts stated.

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Court holds that all candidates can challenge rules governing vote counting in elections - SCOTUSblog