Briefs before the Supreme Court are making deceptive (at best) claims about what state legislatures have done this December when it comes to presidential elections and the selection of presidential electors.

Consider this statement from a brief in King v. Whitmer:

As a result of the foregoing, there are now competing slates of electors from the four states at issue [Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin] in the four cases mentioned above, (as well from Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania).

These four slates of electors have received the endorsement of the legislatures in each of these States, as reflected in permission for them to cast (or attempt to cast) their electoral votes, as an electoral body, for President Donald J. Trump in the respective State Houses at the time and place as set forth under applicable State law, the Electoral Count Act, and the authority delegated under the U.S. Constitution’s Electors Clause. U.S. Const. Art II, § 1, cl. 2.

Or these statements from a brief in In re Pearson:

While the Georgia Legislature did not go so far as to formally withdraw or nullify this delegation of authority on December 14, 2020, its endorsement of the contingent slate of Republican electors preserved its right to do so at the time and in the manner of its choosing.

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Any contention that the federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction over these controversies is likewise without merit. The events of December 14, 2014 giving rise to competing slates of electors for the State of Georgia – one endorsed by the State Legislature and one by the Respondent State executives – creates a new and very live “case or controversy” under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

The “legislature” is the elected lawmaking body in a state, but that lawmaking body has some rules. To act as a legislature, it has to be in session. It has to have a quorum present. It has to hold a vote. It typically requires a public report in a journal, like the federal Constitution requires. These aren’t controversial propositions for even most the ardent defender of a state legislature’s power under the Presidential Electors Clause.

But no legislature has done any such thing. No legislature has appointed a slate of electors. No legislature has “endorsed” the actions of a slate of electors that attempted to vote contrary to the electors certified from the popular election in the state.

“Permission” to appear in the state capitol is no more an endorsement than allowing any group of tourists to step foot in the capitol and engage in some kind of activity.

While some individuals purporting to be groups of Republican electors cast votes in their respective states recently—arguing they were a “rival” slate opposed to the winning Democratic slate—none of these slates were appointed by the legislature. All acted on their own. While individual legislators may have approved of their decisions, no legislature did so.

In contrast, one can go back to 2000 and the special session of the Florida legislature that met to consider choosing a slate of electors as Bush v. Gore languished in the courts. One can open the House journal to find the vote of the Florida House approving a slate of electors. Yet it still wasn’t an appointment of the legislature, as the Senate never acted on it.

These statements in the briefs before the Supreme Court are designed to sow confusion and uncertainty, to act as if there are questions of the legitimacy of more than one slate of electors when, in reality, there is only one slate in each of the fifty states that has any legally-recognized authority.