Following another denial in the Pennsylvania courts, Republicans on Thursday again urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the battlefield state, while state lawyers say serious flaws in the original case mean that Judges most likely will not grant him.
Northwestern Pennsylvania Republican Representative Mike Kelly and the other plaintiffs are calling on the Supreme Court to prevent the state from certifying competitions from the November 3 election and revoking certifications that have already taken place, such as Biden’s victory, while the lawsuit is being examined.
They claim Pennsylvania’s expansive email voting bill is unconstitutional as it required a constitutional amendment to approve its provisions.
As a sign that the case is likely too late to sway the election, Judge Samuel Alito ordered state lawyers to respond by December 9, one day after the so-called “safe harbor deadline”.
Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine, argues, “The timing here is important.”
“Every final determination of the electoral roll that is made in a state by the so-called” safe harbor period “under the federal law on electoral counting has the right to be finally recognized as valid by Congress,” Hasen writes on his blog about the suffrage. “This year is that deadline [December 8]. The voters themselves will vote on December 14th. Setting the deadline for a response to December 9th means the Supreme Court won’t act long after the safe haven deadline has passed, making the Supreme Court even less likely to overturn the Pennsylvania results . “
Biden beat President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, a state that Trump won in 2016. Most of the postal ballots were submitted by Democrats.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the case on Saturday. Kelly’s attorneys petitioned the US Supreme Court on Tuesday for an injunction and then withdrew it while asking the state Supreme Court to suspend any certification pending the US Supreme Court action. State judges denied Thursday, and Kelly’s attorneys immediately dismissed the case in the US Supreme Court.
In the state courts, judges referred to the law’s 180-day deadline for filing appeals against its provisions, as well as the astounding demand for an entire election to be retroactively void.
Not only are Kelly’s attorneys questioning the state’s Mail-In Voting Act, but they are also questioning whether the state’s judges have violated their clients’ constitutional rights by dismissing the case on the basis of time limits and asking it for the same reasons prevented them from raising him again.
Repeated roadblocks
Trump’s desperate efforts in court to de-legitimize a lost election have come no closer in a month to reversing outcomes.
Trump and his allies’ attorneys have asked judges in several states to take the drastic and unprecedented move to undo Biden’s victories.
But the amount of sworn affidavits, lawsuits and allegations made by Trump suggests that they are wrong or often repeating arguments that have already been rejected by judges and election officials, some of them Republicans.
Here you can see where the legal steps are in other key states:
Arizona
A judge on Thursday held a trial brought by Republican Party leader Kelli Ward for irregularities in checking the signature on postal ballot papers. The judge had Ward’s lawyers and experts compare the signatures on 100 envelopes with the signatures to see if there were any irregularities. Ward’s attorneys identified two issues: one person’s vote for Trump was ultimately recorded as a vote for Biden, and another person’s Trump vote was voided because the ballot was voting for both Trump and an enrolled candidate.
The courts there have already dismissed four other cases. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, confirmed the results from Arizona on Monday. In a touch of symbolism, he declined a call from Trump while he was signing the certification papers. Attorney Sidney Powell, who was recently fired from Trump’s legal team and promoted wild conspiracy theories about the election, has also filed a lawsuit there.
Supporters of President Donald Trump’s protest in Phoenix, Arizona last week [Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo]
Michigan
Six cases of Trump and Republican allies in Michigan have either been rejected or dropped. On Wednesday, Giuliani appeared at a public meeting with lawmakers and urged activists to pressure or even threaten the GOP-controlled legislature to “bolster” the state’s 16 electoral votes despite Biden’s 154,000-vote victory and award Trump .
Wisconsin
The state Supreme Court on Thursday refused to hear Trump’s lawsuit to overturn his loss in the battlefield state. In a split decision, the court did not rule on the merits of the claims, but said the case had to weave its way through the lower courts first. Trump wants to disqualify more than 221,000 ballot papers in the state’s two largest Democratic counties as allegations of irregularities in postal ballot management are alleged. When Trump’s attorneys asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, they said they did not have enough time to begin a lower court.
Trump’s attorney Jim Troupis said he would take the case to court immediately and expect to be back in the Supreme Court “very soon”.
Trump’s campaign filed a similar lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday. Two other lawsuits filed by Conservatives are pending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Powell has also filed a lawsuit to seek an order to decertify election results in the state.
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