Supreme Court Denies GOP Request To Reverse Election Results In Pennsylvania

The Supreme Court dismissed an attempt to reverse the outcome of the Pennsylvania presidential election, suggesting that the high court would not go along with the extraordinary attempts of President Donald Trump to seek another term after a decisive loss against Joe Biden in the popular vote and the Electoral College.

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Republican Rep. Mike Kelly filed the case, alleging that a 2019 state law permitting universal mail-in voting is illegal and that all votes cast by mail in the Pennsylvania general election should be tossed out.

Kelly filed the case on November 21, along with many others, and demanded that Pennsylvania would have to reject the 2.5 million-plus mailed ballots or allow state lawmakers to choose presidential electors. Republicans govern the legislature in Pennsylvania.

On November 28, the state Supreme Court unanimously denied the appeal, arguing that the GOP had taken too long to challenge the law.

Alito, the Pennsylvania court judge who supervises emergency matters for the court, had previously provided election officials time until December 2, 2020 to file a response to Kelly’s appeal. But on November 29, Alito moved that deadline up to December 1, 2020, the same day that marks the “safe harbor” deadline, which acts as a cut-off date by which states must settle and certify the results of any remaining election disputes.

Kelly argued that Act 77, which allows voters, for any reason, to cast ballots by mail, is not constitutional. But lawyers representing the administration of Pennsylvania said that his claims were baseless.

On November 24, with Biden winning by more than 80,000 votes, Pennsylvania certified its election results. There are 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania.

The reluctance of the Supreme Court to nullify the election results of Pennsylvania is a setback to Trump, who refused to back down and spoke explicitly about his urge for the country’s highest court to step in and assist his campaign.

In states that it did not win in the November 3 election, Trump’s campaign has filed several lawsuits – legal moves that have not progressed too much in states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Trump and his supporters’ legal teams lost appeals within a matter of hours in courts in six states.

The Associated Press announced that a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit in Michigan opposing the outcome of the presidential election, bluntly using the expression, “This ship has sailed.”

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