“Free and fair elections start with clear rules that don’t change right before the election,” Yost said in today’s brief. “It is not unreasonable to wonder — and many millions of Americans do — whether those hastily implemented changes exposed the election systems to vulnerabilities.”
But Yost, in his filing, does not support Texas’ request that justices direct state legislatures to appoint electors, arguing that would undermine state sovereignty.
“The courts have no more business ordering the People’s representatives how to choose electors than they do ordering the People themselves how to choose their dinners,” the filing says.
READ THE FULL FILING
The filing by the Ohio Republican puts him out of line with more than a dozen other GOP-led states that have signed on.
Yost does not provide an alternative remedy to Texas’ request if the U.S. Supreme Court indeed finds states acted inappropriately.
“It may prove difficult at this late date to fashion a remedy that does not create equal or greater harms,” the filing says. “But there will be an election in 2024, another four years after that, and so on. If only to prevent the doubts that have tainted this election from arising again in some future election, the Court should decide, as soon as possible, the extent of the power that the Electors Clause confers on state legislatures and withholds from other actors.”
Yost emphasized that he has no concerns about election results in Ohio, where voters favored Trump over Biden by more than 8 percentage points.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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