McCain v. Obama, a U.S. Supreme Court hypothetical (one hopes)
Election Law @ Moritz, with co-sponsors AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown's law school, will conduct simulated adjudication of a hypothetical case involving a dispute over the outcome of this year's presidential election. This experiment will test an idea proposed in recent scholarship: that the public more likely would perceive that courts are fair and impartial in resolving lawsuits over the outcome of high-stakes elections if the courts that adjudicate these cases are specifically structured to be strictly bipartisan.
The event will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 20. It will be webcasted live. For the most up-to-date information, visit http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/electioncourt/
It's the oral argument in a simulated McCain v. Obama adjudication. The panel of retired jurists to adjudicate the hypothetical case is David Levi, Thomas Phillips, and Patricia Wald. The two advocates are Glen Nager and Walter Dellinger.
The exercise will test whether a specially structured election court, designed to be neutrally bipartisan, can resolve lawsuits over election results in a way the public more likely will perceive as fair and impartial. The hypothetical case concerns provisional ballots cast in Colorado: whether or not to count them will determine which candidate wins the White House.
More details about this event, the participants, and the scholarship that underlies it are here: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/articles.php?ID=1897
