And there are worrying signs that the fears of independent scholars, Democrats and a few anti-Trump Republicans could become a reality. We could soon be in legal terra incognita, they said — like the days when medieval cartographers would write “Here Be Dragons” along the unexplored edges of world maps.

“It would be completely unprecedented,” said Nathaniel Persily, an elections expert at Stanford University. “I hate to be apocalyptic,” he added, but the United States could be headed for the kind of electoral chaos that “our system is incapable of handling.”

If the court adopts the most aggressive version of the legal theory, Persily noted, it could raise questions about the constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act, adding a new wrinkle of uncertainty.