Judging by her performance on “Saturday Night Live,” Vice President Harris is in good spirits as the race for the presidency enters its final days. It’s unfortunate that when the laughter recedes, legal questions about the unoriginal cameo may overshadow an otherwise sunny moment in a dark election year.

On September 19, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” Lorne Michaels, told the Hollywood Reporter that neither Ms. Harris nor two-time host President Trump would appear. “You can’t bring the actual people who are running on,” he said, “because of election laws and the equal time provisions.” So many “minor candidates,” he added, make cameos “really complicated.”