This year, the Supreme Court is going to be a critical factor in the presidential election, no matter what it does. In the words of the rock band Rush, this could even come down to "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." But we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Let's take the two issues that will almost certainly wind up before the high court and see what the possibilities are and how the timing of it all could affect the race for the presidency.

Will Trump appear on the ballot?

This is the most immediate issue the court is going to face. In two states -- Colorado and Maine -- Donald Trump has been barred from appearing on the primary ballot. In Colorado, the state supreme court ruled that Trump did indeed engage in an insurrection and thus is ineligible to be president. Since he is ineligible to serve, his name will not be on the primary ballot (in much the same way that a 29-year-old would be barred from the presidential ballot for not being old enough). Appeals have already been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. But the deadline for finalizing the primary ballot is this Friday, and no one really expects the high court to rule before then.

In Maine, the secretary of state determined that Trump was ineligible to appear on the primary ballot as well. In this case, the courts haven't even gotten involved yet and any challenge to this decision will have to travel all the way up through the state legal system to their highest court, which is going to consume some time. Then when the Maine high court rules, there will almost certainly be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court afterwards.

These cases, it is worth pointing out, both deal with primary ballots. But the question is going to come up again with the general election ballots as well.

But as I began by saying, in both states if nothing happens before the deadline for finalizing the primary ballot (if the Supreme Court doesn't jump into the fray by this Friday, in Colorado's case), then Trump will indeed appear on both states' primary ballots. In both states, the rulings have been put on hold while the appeals wind their way through the system. So it could all be a moot point, at least as far as the Maine and Colorado primaries are concerned.

The Supreme Court has a number of options open to it, the first of which is to either do nothing or at least not act very quickly. They could wait until the primaries have actually happened and then drop the case entirely, since any decision would only be moot at that point. Trump would then appear on both states' ballots, so it all would be the same as if Trump was never ruled ineligible in the first place. The court could even determine that primary ballots were beneath its notice and essentially punt the case until some state decides to kick Trump off their general election ballot (which has not actually happened yet).

At some point, though, the court is either going to have to make a decision or just sit back and allow each state to determine the status of its own ballots. This could mean Trump is barred from some states' ballots while appearing on others, which isn't a very consistent way to run a national election (to put it mildly).

If the Supreme Court does make a decision on the Fourteenth Amendment and ballot eligibility, they could decide anything under the sun. There are all kinds of legalistic ways they could rule on the issue (too many to delve into here), some of which would address the basic constitutional issue (of what the Fourteenth Amendment really means, in practical terms) and some of which would not. The best outcome -- no matter what they ultimately decide on the legalisms -- would be one that applies to all the states, though. This would allow for consistency in November, one way or another.

Trump's immunity claims

The other clock that is ticking in the legal world is Trump's appeal of the charges brought against him for the January 6th insurrection attempt. In various ways, Trump is arguing that he is completely immune from such charges. The trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on March 4th.

Currently, a three-judge panel of the federal appellate court is preparing to hear arguments in the case, on an expedited schedule. If they (as expected) uphold the trial judge's ruling and rule against Trump, then Trump could only appeal the decision to either the entire appellate court (sitting en banc) or directly to the Supreme Court. Since one of Trump's goals is to delay everything as long as possible, he will likely attempt to have the whole appeals court hear the case first. They could either do so (also likely on an expedited schedule) or they could refuse to hear Trump's appeal and let the ruling of the three-judge panel stand. Either way, sooner or later it's going to wind up before the Supreme Court.

Although Special Counsel Jack Smith is trying to keep the court's March 4th trial schedule on track, the Supreme Court may decide this isn't all that important. They can move at their own pace, and they might decide to drag this out for as long as possible. The Supreme Court already turned down Smith's motion to take the case up immediately, and while the court can indeed move with lightning speed at times (see: Bush v. Gore), it is in no way required to.

The best outcome -- for both Smith and for the country at large -- might be the Supreme Court just declining to take the case. The case does indeed raise deep constitutional questions, but that doesn't mean the Supreme Court has to weigh in on them. They could decide that the appellate court got it right, and thus there was no need to hear a further appeal. This would have the benefit of happening almost immediately after the appellate court ruled and it would be the end of the road for Trump's appeals. This could even keep the case on schedule and Trump might have to appear in a courtroom in early March.

Personally, I have no idea what the chances of that happening are, though. It seems more likely that the Supreme Court is going to want to weigh in on the issue and put its own imprimatur on the constitutional questions raised. The court does have a 6-3 conservative majority, but that doesn't automatically mean Trump's going to win. After all, if they do rule for Trump it would open the door to any president being able to do essentially anything they wanted to, and as long as they called it "part of their official duties" then they would never have to face any consequences. As HuffPost posits today:

President Joe Biden could, in theory, have Donald Trump abducted from his Mar-a-Lago home, spirited off to St. Helena in the faraway South Atlantic, and secretly kept their indefinitely, or even straight-up killed, without ever having to worry about criminal charges.

It would turn the entire concept of America on its head, since it would approve of presidents essentially acting with the "divine right of kings" to do whatever they pleased, laws be damned. Which is why just having a 6-3 conservative majority doesn't automatically equate to Trump winning. The implications of the court accepting Trump's logic are pretty mind-bendingly bad. And they've already denied him the claim of absolute immunity previously (in a different case, for different legal reasons).

But the high court could allow Trump to "win" in a way, even if they eventually rule against him. Trump wants to delay all his court cases until after the election, and the Supreme Court could give him a huge boost in this effort if it just operates at its usual glacial pace.

Whenever the appellate court rules, the Supreme Court will then get an appeal of their ruling (from either Trump or Smith, depending on which way the ruling goes). They could decide to hear the case during the current term, or they could decide that their schedule is so jam-packed that they have to punt it to next term -- which begins in October. That, obviously, wouldn't leave enough time for a ruling that would allow the trial to happen before the election. Or the Supreme Court could decide to hear the appeal now, but then only issue a ruling at the end of their term, in late June. This might also prove to be late enough to kick the entire trial past the election. As I said, even if the ruling is against Trump, by delaying such a ruling for months it would essentially allow Trump the victory of not having to answer in court until after the election happens.

Or the court could move quickly. They could take up the case after the appeals court rules and then issue a ruling within mere days or weeks. This could even allow the trial to happen on time, if things move quickly enough. A slight delay might be necessary, but not a delay long enough to kick it out past the election.

Whatever the high court does, in both of these cases, it is going to have an impact on the election cycle. In both cases, the Supreme Court could essentially "choose not to decide" (at least, for now) and by doing so let Trump win on the ballot issue (at least for the primaries) but lose on his claim of immunity (assuming the appellate court upholds the judge's initial ruling, which seems likely).

Or they could wade into the fray in either case. They could act with lightning speed, or they could delay things so long that Trump "wins" his massive delays in the process. There is plenty of speculation already as to how the court is going to decide these two critical issues (which I've only lightly touched upon here, but will no doubt explore in more depth later), but what is also going to be interesting to see is when they make their decisions. In both cases, the timing is going to matter -- a lot.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant