The democratic process should seldom be overturned by the judiciary, as that essentially leads to or creates a subversion of democracy and undermines the entire process and validity of democracy itself. If the people are not in charge of their destiny, but in fact, are subservient to a certain judge or judges, then democracy effectively ceases to exist and are lives are no longer in our own hands, but in the hands of those who would believe that they know better, and often have agendas that are in conflict with the majority of the population. If judges feel that they can indiscriminately work outside the rule of law, than law itself, has no effective meaning or stability. No law, once firmly established, should be overruled without good and valid reasons to do so which must be not only enumerated but well reasoned.
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected to be the 16th President of the United States. Despite Lincoln not being on the ballot in ten southern states, Lincoln received the most popular votes of any candidate and a majority of the electoral votes and thereby was elected as our President. Before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, a total of seven southern states had seceded from the union. Lincoln presciently stated in his Cooper Union Speech of February 27, 1860: “Your purpose then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, in all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.” The civil war was fought for many reasons, and certainly one of the primary reasons was that for those that are democratically defeated in a legitimate nationwide election, that they should never have recourse to take up arms against their own democratically and constitutionally elected government. The people had spoken and in response the southern states on their own volition and without merit, arbitrarily overruled the democratic process.
In most cases it is very bad law, and very bad judgment, to overturn ballot results with a singular judge issuing a ruling that favors the defeated party. Any judicial decision that overturns the people's democratic process, essentially creates a system in which it is the judicial branch itself that determines what the law is or isn't, what it should be or shouldn't be and therefore it is the judicial branch that determines what laws will be implemented, how they shall be implemented, and where they will be implemented. This thereby becomes a very slippery slope and the more power that is put into the hands of the few, who are extremely difficult to remove from office, the easier it is for an elite judiciary to pass and execute laws that fulfill their particular vision to the possible detriment of the public as a whole.
Judges that create arbitrary law breed contempt of the law. Additionally, rather than believing that this country needs more law, or changing law, or reversing law, or morphing law, or new law, what it does need, is less law, and more common sense for the common good.