FIRST MAKE THE RULES, THEN FOLLOW THEM: James Joyner elegantly sums up why it’s better to follow the rules set down by the legislature, than to chase an impossible standard of fairness through the courts:

. . . every time I’ve voted, there have been election observers from the two political parties. There’s no better way that I can think of to assure people that there is no misconduct taking place in heavily partisan precincts. That said, I could see where having hordes of challengers could disrupt the process.

This is yet another case, though, where the legislature is a more legitimate body to make decisions on such issues than the courts. The advantage of having the legislature make these choices–as they had already done by passing the statute, signed by the governor–is that they are made a priori. When judges get involved, by definition, a specific case in controversy exists and there is therefore knowledge of which party a specific application of a rule will advantage. In this case, a single political appointee has made two crucial judgments that may call the most heated state contest into question. That’s not good for a democratic system.