The Supreme Court rejected a Pennsylvania Republican’s request to block the certification of Pennsylvania election results, dealing a fatal blow to his efforts to disqualify Biden’s victory if elected by the Republicans.
There was no significant disposal, and it marks the first vote of Justice Amy Connie Barrett in an election-related controversy.
The court acted quickly after a final brief application was filed in court, suggesting that the judges wanted to send a decisive message.
“However, we do not know whether the vote is really unanimous or whether the court rejected Rep. Kelly’s emergency request. The fact that the judges issued a one-sentence order with a different opinion is a strong indication that he intends to stay out of court.” Controversy over the election, and things will be left to chance in the run-up to the election, “said Steve Vladek, a legal analyst at CNN and a professor at the University of Texas law school. . “
The Supreme Court’s action is a crushing loss for President Trump, who by Tuesday suggested that he may have thought the judges – including his three nominees – and would take his side, as he consistently and incorrectly indicated that large voters There was fraud. Election.
Biden’s spokesman Mike Gwynn, responding to the Supreme Court’s decision, said: “Dozens of courts have rejected Trump and his allies’ useless and just claims, and now the Supreme Court of this land has joined them – without a single disagreement – in rejecting the attack. On the process. “
“This election is over. If Biden had won, he would have been sworn in as president in January,” Gwyn said.
Rep. Mike Kelly challenged the Commonwealth’s “no-excuse” absentee ballot law, which came into force in October 2019.
The effort met with stiff opposition in the Supreme Court, especially as the controversy turned primarily to state law issues. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week rejected the challenge, saying Kelly and others had failed to file their challenge in a timely manner.
In presenting the case “the fact that the applicants failed to act with due diligence is simply out of the question”, the court noted that they made the claim a year after the law was enacted on the issue.
Tuesday also marked the deadline for a “safe port” for the state under federal law. This means that when Congress lengthens the election votes in January, it should accept the election results that were certified before the deadline.
The emergency petition was addressed to Judge Samuel Elito, who has jurisdiction over the Pennsylvania court. He referred to the entire court.
Kelly’s lawyers argued that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court closed all avenues of relief for past and future damages, allowing U.S. By the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, respectively, their “right to petition and the right to due process have been violated.”
But Pennsylvania officials called the request “fundamentally futile.”
Chief Deputy Attorney General of the State J. Bart Dale argued that “no court has ever ordered the revocation of the governor’s certificate of results of the presidential election.”
“The loss of public confidence in our constitutional order will be unimaginable as a result of this kind of judicial power,” he said.
CNN’s Arlette Senz contributed to this report.
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