There was a lot of angst on the court, and by common people, for many years afterwards about this. The reason the court cases were punted so violently in 2020 was mainly because of the fallout over the 2000 Bush v. Gore situation. Normally people understand the court through its appellate route, Texas and other states directly sued Pennsylvania and a few other states over their blatant violations of the constitution, this being the "original jurisdiction" of the Supreme Court. Its written that the legislature handles drafting laws for elections and PA used emergency covid powers to delegate the ability for the Secretary of State to handle it, someone that was in the executive branch. In the US Constitution the language is very clear, unlike some of the more vague passages like the 2nd amendment. The Supreme Court almost never ignores stuff in its Original Jurisdiction and Clarence Thomas and Alito were absolutely gobsmacked by Robert's punting the case. Alito in particular was pissed with PA in the first place because he already handled a case for PA and ordered election officials to set aside any ballot that was questionable, PA immediately dumped them in with the rest of the ballots intentionally, in direct defiance of his order, so likely Alito would have raked PA over the coals for this shit.