Wouldn't the lack of standing be an aspect of the merits of the suit? In any case, the supreme court isn't the sole judge of the merits of a case, they are just the arbiters of the outcome.
> But it’s in the Supreme Court so it can’t be completely without legal merit.
From my understanding, the lower courts haven't looked at that argument yet, since the question "do these people even have standing to sue" comes before any arguments.
The judge emphatically did not rule on the merits of the case, simply that there was no reason to proceed further due to laches. A ruling on laches says nothing about the validity of the argument.
The merits of the case were much more straightforward than the standing analysis. But if the plaintiffs didn't have standing, the merits wouldn't be reached. I was slightly surprised that they ruled on standing the way they did, but the underlying merits decision was completely unsurprising (because, as you say, this was a very clear overstepping — as top dems had admitted just months prior).
No, if they wanted to deny the case on its merits they could have done so. They chose to deny standing instead, probably to avoid pissing a lot of people off. They did not say it was impossible to grant relief, they said they would not grant relief. What this means is open to interpretation, for example, they could rule that the elections were conducted in violation of the Elections Clause but that it is up to the state legislatures to decide which electors to appoint, which would actually be a good outcome for the Trump campaign.
In order to say whether the case is good or not you would have to point to something specific that makes it legally weak. E.g. controlling precedent. Standing has no bearing on the merits of the case, so everyone using standing as an argument is not making a real argument but is just playing a shell game.
The case went to the Supreme Court. It wasn't tried in any lower courts because cases between states have original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court can reject a case for lack of standing (the plaintiff does not have the right to sue the defendant) or for lack of merit (the lawsuit is obviously frivolous). They can also reject it if they think the lower court ruled correctly, but that doesn't apply here.
IANAL, but my understanding is that courts will make rulings without standing all the time. Most commonly in cases where constitutionality of a new law or statute is raised, without the law having gone into effect yet, not having affected anyone.
Lack of standing is lack of standing. It's not the courts job to hear random facts about things that aren't cases.
They did get to present cases where they had standing, and lost them. Guiliani couldn't even tell a judge whether he was alleging fraud or not. That doesn't mean they get to go to another court to present the same thing.
The Supreme Court does not decide cases: it decides questions. Whether or not the case is interesting, the legal questions the parties asked the Court to resolve were evidently not worth its time.
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