There are many things totally wrong with Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in the Wisconsin case yesterday, but this one piece takes the cake. Kavanaugh writes: "those States also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, /1

or as soon as possible thereafter." Let's be clear -- there are ZERO states that definitively announce the results of the election on election night. ZERO. The results announced on election night are all partial returns since EVERY state, tallies absentee ballots and /2

provisional ballots in the days after an election. When an election winner is "announced" on election night it is a projection announced (ironically enough) by the media based on partial returns, percentage reporting, and exit polling. It is NEVER the official result /3

which ALWAYS trails by days (and in cases of a close contest and a recount, weeks). For Kavanaugh to extol election day certainty as a value that a State may adopt to justify its decision to reject post-election day absentee ballots is /4

just factually in error. NO STATE has ever done that because no state can possibly announce an official result on election night. And as a political statement, it is mendacious clap-trap. /fin