Republicans are yet again looking for help from the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed supermajority in placing a thumb on the scale for Republicans in future elections.

Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican and gubernatorial candidate, and America First Legal, the far-right law firm founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, were handed a serious setback last week when a court panel dismissed their lawsuit with prejudice, meaning they can’t file it again. The suit claimed Florida had been wrongfully denied an additional congressional seat and Electoral College vote because of the way the 2020 census was conducted.

For years, many Republicans have followed President Donald Trump’s lead in falsely claiming that the census count intentionally benefits Democrats. Liberals, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, have debunked these claims while spotlighting how the process of apportionment — that is, the delegation of congressional seats based on population — has been used to benefit conservatives.

The Florida Phoenix reported on last week’s ruling from a U.S. District Court three-judge panel. Per the outlet:

The Republicans alleged that a proper count would have given Florida an additional U.S. House seat and an additional vote in the Electoral College but for the “vast use” of a statistical method known as imputation. However, for the second time in six months, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida dismissed the case, this time with prejudice, finding that any further amendment to the pleadings “would be futile.”

The ruling was celebrated by lawyer Marc Elias, the pro-democracy attorney whose law firm helped thwart conservatives in the case. A day later, the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

For the record, imputation is basically the statistics-based process by which census data is used to make estimates, such as the number of people living in a certain household. The irony in Florida Republicans’ kvetching here is that Trump administration officials basically tried to manipulate the 2020 census count, leading to a significant undercount that disproportionately affected communities with large nonwhite populations. As I noted in 2022, Florida, which underfunded its Census efforts, was among several states that experienced an undercount.

Donalds and the other conservative groups that sued had claimed they were harmed by excessive use of imputation, but the federal court panel disagreed. As the Florida Phoenix reported:

Regarding the complaint that whole-person imputation was excessively used, the judges wrote that “the data cited in the Complaint show that it is entirely speculative whether the imputation employed in the census for Florida increased or decreased the Florida head count relative to other States.”

Trump and his allies have been looking to the Supreme Court in their desperate push to influence electoral processes. The president is still licking his wounds after the high court refused to back his push to restrict voting by mail. And this appeal over the census is yet another example of conservatives hoping that Trump’s handpicked justices can help them maintain a stranglehold over Washington.

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