Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Governor Wolf calls Republicans’ election claims ‘shameful’ lies for political gain | Charles Thompson/PennLive

Gov. Tom Wolf put Pennsylvania’s Republican Congressmen who plan to support objections to the 2020 presidential election results on full blast Wednesday, accusing them of being willing participants in perpetuating what he called a “shameful” lie for personal political gain. Eight of the state’s U.S. House members have affirmed their intent to support objections to the final certification of electoral votes in Congress today. Wolf, noting all of the objecting Pennsylvanians were elected to new terms in the very same election, called their actions shameful. “They could not have taken their own seats in in Congress in good conscience if they truly believed the election results were inaccurate, which just leaves one possibility: That they are purposely spreading disinformation about our elections for personal political gain,” Wolf said. “That’s shameful, and that’s destructive, and I cannot let it stand unchallenged. “The problem is these folks are not telling the truth, because it’s a fact. Pennsylvania had a fair and free election. It’s a fact that there was no fraud or illegal activity in Pennsylvania. It’s a fact, that (President-elect) Joe Biden won the presidency, and to be clear, it wasn’t even close.” The Democratic governor’s comments came during a mid-day press conference in which he, his Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and Philadelphia commissioner Al Schmidt offered full-throated defenses of Pennsylvania’s balloting and counting.

Full Article: Gov. Wolf calls Republicans’ Pa. election claims ‘shameful’ lies for political gain – pennlive.com

Pennsylvania: Republican complaints about election are groundless, state officials and legal scholars argue | Marc Levy/Associated Press

The complaints about Pennsylvania’s election — brought by eight of the state’s Republican members of Congress who say they will oppose electoral votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden — are either untrue or dismissed by the courts, state officials and constitutional law scholars say. Those eight will join dozens of other Republicans around the country whom President Donald Trump has enlisted to challenge the Electoral College vote when Congress convenes in a joint session Wednesday to confirm Biden’s 306-232 win. In statements released last week, they complained about election-related policies of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and decisions by the state Supreme Court, generally concerning the collection and counting of mail-in ballots. “Until these unlawful practices are acknowledged and corrected, we cannot agree to support electors chosen based upon an inaccurate total vote count,” they wrote. Their complaints, however, are based on outright falsehoods, state officials say, and ignore what courts have repeatedly said, constitutional law scholars say.

Full Article: Republican complaints about Pa. election are groundless, state officials and legal scholars argue – The Morning Call

Pennsylvania: Election officials want a say in voting reforms, but politics may get in the way | Marie Albiges/Philadelphia Inquirer

Democrats and Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature haven’t agreed on much when it comes to the 2020 election — only that change is needed. Those changes will be hotly debated during the General Assembly’s next session, which begins this week. Already, two Republicans have proposed eliminating universal mail-in voting altogether, while some Democrats are again pushing in-person early voting. But the people who actually run elections across the state, whose pleas for assistance have been largely ignored by the legislature over the past few months, said they should be front-and-center in the reform process — not partisanship and misinformation. In 2021, they want their voices to be heard. “We feel pretty strongly that we want to be at the table for those conversations with our legislature,” said Sherene Hess, an Indiana County commissioner and chair of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania election reform committee. “There’s no question that we can improve, and now is the time to do it.” Central to the discussions of election law changes will be the state’s expansion of mail-in voting for any registered voter. Passed in 2019 and used for the first time last year in the midst of a pandemic that prevented many from going to the polls, Act 77 contributed to Pennsylvania’s record turnout in the general election, with more than 2.6 million people casting a ballot by mail.

Full Article: Election officials want a say in Pa.’s voting reforms, but politics may get in the way

Pennsylvania: 21 uncounted ballots discovered among Westmoreland County voting equipment | Rich Cholodovsky/Tribune Review

Westmoreland County elections officials disclosed Monday that 21 uncounted provisional ballots submitted at a North Huntingdon voting precinct on Election Day were discovered last week among computer equipment used at the polls in November. Elections bureau staffers found the unopened ballots during a routine inspection of voting machines stored at the department’s Greensburg warehouse on Dec. 28. JoAnn Sebastiani, the county’s elections director, said additional precautions had been enacted ahead of the Nov. 3 election that were designed to prevent the misfiling of ballots returned to the courthouse from the precincts, but those measures were unsuccessful. “Unfortunately, the judge of elections did not follow instructions,” Sebastiani said. The discovered provisional ballots were cast in North Huntingdon’s 4th ward, second precinct at the United Methodist Church on Coulterville Road. Poll workers submitted an empty envelope to elections officials on Nov. 3 at the courthouse that indicated no provisional ballots were cast at the precinct, Sebastiani said. Officials in November processed and counted about 3,800 provisional ballots cast at the county’s 307 voting precincts. The 21 uncounted ballots were found stuffed under a touchscreen computer during routine inspections of the nearly 900 voting machines and 307 scanners placed throughout the county on Election Day. Those machines, along with 900 bins containing the more than 143,000 paper ballots cast at the precincts on Nov. 3, under the state’s election code were required to remain under seal until Nov. 23.

Full Article: Uncounted ballots discovered among Westmoreland County voting equipment | TribLIVE.com

Pennsylvania election lawsuit over mail ballots that could overturn a race — but not the presidency | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

At its narrowest, Ziccarelli v. Allegheny County Board of Elections is an argument over 2,349 mail ballots cast in Allegheny County that arrived in time but lacked dates filled out on the envelopes. Those ballots, including 311 votes in the 45th Senatorial District, gave incumbent Sen. Jim Brewster, a Democrat, the win by just 69 votes. The state Supreme Court affirmed Allegheny County’s decision to count the votes. But the district crosses into Westmoreland County, one of the counties that decided not to count ballots that lacked dates, classifying them as incomplete. That creates an unfair situation, Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli argued in her federal court lawsuit. Similar votes are being handled differently in different counties, which she says violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. “Based on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s judgment, mail-in ballots will be counted or not counted based solely on the happenstance of which county election board reviews the ballot,” she wrote in her complaint late last month. The real impact of the case, experts said, could be much broader than who wins the seat, possibly clarifying a recurring question that has proven hard to answer in the messy real world: When is it OK for counties in the same state or electoral district to have different policies and run their elections differently?

Full Article: Pennsylvania lawsuit over mail ballots could reshape future elections

Pennsylvania: As he seeks to overturn election, Trump invites state’s GOP senators to White House lunch | Angela Coloumbis/Spotlight PA

As he seeks to overturn Pennsylvania’s election results in the courts, President Donald Trump invited Republican members of the GOP-controlled state Senate to a Wednesday lunch at the White House. The invitation for the luncheon was sent to all GOP lawmakers in the chamber, said Jennifer Kocher, a spokesperson for the caucus. No agenda was included, she said, and it was not immediately known how many senators were attending. The top Republican in the state Senate, Jake Corman of Centre County, had other commitments, Kocher said, and was not planning to go. Aides to newly elected Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At least one Republican senator, Doug Mastriano of Franklin County, had made arrangements to attend, a legislative source said. Mastriano organized a hearing last month in Gettysburg on unfounded claims of widespread election fraud. Mere hours after the hearing, Mastriano, one of the chamber’s most conservative members, tested positive for covid-19. He received his results when he and a small group of people traveled to the White House that day to meet with Trump, the Associated Press reported. Guests are tested for the virus and Mastriano was forced to leave after testing positive that day. Mastriano could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The White House luncheon comes two days after Corman announced that he will push a measure to create a special committee to “conduct an exhaustive review” of all aspects of last month’s election. “Far too many residents of Pennsylvania are questioning the validity of their votes or have doubt that the process was conducted fairly, securely, and produced accurate results,” he said in a statement.

Full Article: As he seeks to overturn Pa.’s election, Trump invites state’s GOP senators to White House lunch | TribLIVE.com

Pennsylvania election officials are burnt out and leaving their jobs after 2020 ‘nightmare’ | Spotlight PA

In the weeks before the general election, Sara May-Silfee’s office was overwhelmed. Phone calls from voters were incessant. Lines of people formed outside the building to apply for and cast mail ballots. In one instance, she said, impatient voters began chants outside her office that the waiting times amounted to voter suppression. The Monroe County elections director even got in the habit of closing her office’s shades at night, she said, because voters would knock on the windows, as late as 9, looking for assistance. “It was a nightmare,” May-Silfee said. “Everything was a nightmare.” Even before the pandemic emerged this spring, county election directors said they warned lawmakers and state officials that huge changes to Pennsylvania’s voting system were too much, too fast. Other states took years to implement statewide no-excuse mail voting. They had a few months.Since the passage of Act 77, the 2019 law that made sweeping changes to voting in Pennsylvania, at least 21 election directors and deputy directors from more than a dozen of the state’s 67 counties have left or will soon leave their posts, according to an analysis by Spotlight PA and Votebeat. A dozen current and former election officials said that’s no coincidence. “Mail-in voting has become like a second election that we have to run, that we never had to run before,” Lycoming County Elections Director Forrest Lehman said. “It has almost doubled the workload, and you know, nobody’s salaries have doubled at the same time.” Despite these challenges, Election Day went smoothly, with officials reporting few problems. Still, the people tasked with running elections are drained from dealing with regular verbal attacks from angry voters, confused or suspicious of the process this year.

Full Article: Pa. election officials are burnt out and leaving their jobs after 2020 ‘nightmare’ – pennlive.com

Pennsylvania: Delaware County man charged with registering dead relatives to vote for Trump in presidential election | Vinny Vella/Philadelphia Inquirer

In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, Elizabeth Bartman and Elizabeth Weihman registered to vote as Republicans in Nether Providence Township, Delaware County officials said Monday. There was one problem: Both women had been dead for several years. The man behind those applications, Bruce Bartman, now faces two felony counts of perjury, as well as one count of unlawful voting for successfully casting an absentee ballot for President Donald Trump in the name of Elizabeth Bartman, his long-dead mother. Bartman was arraigned Friday and released on $100,000 unsecured bail. His lawyer, Samuel Stretton, said the 70-year-old takes full responsibility for the crimes, and will cooperate with investigators. “In his political frustration, he chose to do something stupid,” Stretton said. “And for that he is very sorry.” District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said Bartman admitted to casting the illegal ballot to “further the campaign of Donald Trump.” But the top prosecutor cautioned that Bartman’s arrest was an isolated incident, and not an indication of larger voting problems in the county. “For all the conspiracy theorists out there, this case today does not represent widespread voter fraud,” Stollsteimer said. “This case was evidence that one person committed voter fraud by casting an improper and illegal ballot.” Bartman used his mother’s driver’s license to register her to vote online, and then requested and filled out an absentee ballot in her name, Stollsteimer said. He repeated the process for Weihman, his mother-in-law, using her Social Security number. The state’s system flagged the information as belonging to a dead person, but Bartman signed a letter confirming the woman was still alive.

Full Article: Delaware County man charged with registering dead relatives to vote in presidential election

Pennsylvania: Trump campaign brings new U.S. Supreme Court challenge over 2020 election | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and overturn several decisions the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made regarding the 2020 election, saying that the court overstepped its bounds and that “the outcome of the election for the Presidency of the United States hangs in the balance.” But even in the unlikely event the new challenge is successful and the court agrees to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, it would not change his Electoral College win. Biden amassed 306 electoral votes, the same as Trump four years ago — 36 more votes than the 270 needed to win. Pennsylvania has 20 votes. What the challenge would do, if successful, is defy the will of the Pennsylvania voters who cast ballots in the Nov. 3 election under the rules in place at the time. Specifically, the campaign said in its filing, it would throw out 110,000 votes that it says are invalid because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court inappropriately changed election rules. A lawyer representing the campaign said Sunday it had filed a cert petition and a motion to expedite, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to fast-track the case because of the impending Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to receive the Electoral College results and the Jan. 20 inauguration. The challenge is the latest in a series of increasingly long-shot attempts to overturn the election, which Trump lost in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. The latest attempt, like the others, doesn’t center on any specific claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, despite Trump’s repeated use of baseless conspiracy theories to attack the election.

Full Article: Trump campaign brings new U.S. Supreme Court challenge over Pennsylvania’s 2020 election

Pennsylvania: Trump wants US Supreme Court to overturn election results | Jill Colvin and Marc Levy/Associated Press

Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov 3. election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court. The petition seeks to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases having to do with mail-in ballots and asks the court to reject voters’ will and allow the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pick its own slate of electors. While the prospect of the highest court in the land throwing out the results of a democratic election based on unfounded charges of voter fraud is extraordinary unlikely, it wouldn’t change the outcome. President-elect Joe Biden would still be the winner even without Pennsylvania because of his wide margin of victory in the Electoral College. “The petition seeks all appropriate remedies, including vacating the appointment of electors committed to Joseph Biden and allowing the Pennsylvania General Assembly to select their replacements,” Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement. He is asking the court to move swiftly so it can rule before Congress meets on Jan. 6 to tally the vote of the Electoral College, which decisively confirmed Biden’s win with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. But the justices are not scheduled to meet again, even privately, until Jan 8, two days after Congress counts votes. Pennsylvania last month certified Biden as the winner of the state’s 20 Electoral College votes after three weeks of vote counting and a string of failed legal challenges.

Full Article: Trump wants Supreme Court to overturn Pa. election results

Pennsylvania: 10,000 votes are in limbo. They won’t change the outcome. They could still have a huge impact. | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

About 10,000 Pennsylvania votes are still sitting in purgatory. And they’ll remain there for weeks or even longer, until the U.S. Supreme Court tells the state what to do with the mail ballots that arrived after Election Day last month. The justices will decide Jan. 8 whether to take up cases challenging those ballots, the court said Wednesday. The outcome could have major implications for election policy in the future. For now, the ballots remain excluded from Pennsylvania’s certified presidential and congressional vote tallies, and are not reflected in Joe Biden’s 81,000-vote victory in the state. (They were counted for state races.) Given that Democrats voted by mail far more than Republicans, they are presumably mostly Biden votes. Responding to concerns about an overwhelming crush of ballots being mailed days before the election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in September ordered counties to honor and count any mail ballot that was postmarked by Election Day — the deadline to cast a vote set by state law — but arrived sometime after 8 p.m. that day and within the ensuing three days. Republicans appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Justice Samuel Alito ordered the late-arriving ballots separated from the rest until the court could decide what to do. For weeks, Democrats feared that a post-Election Day disqualification of those ballots could cost Biden the state, and the presidency. But an urgent campaign to get voters to return their ballots by the original deadline ended with only about 10,000 arriving during the grace period.

Full Article: Fate of Pennsylvania mail ballots that arrived late could have future election implications

Pennsylvania congressmen who wanted to throw out their own state’s votes still don’t acknowledge Biden’s win | Jonathan Tamari/Philadelphia Inquirer

The seven Republican congressmen from Pennsylvania who supported a lawsuit that would have thrown out their own state’s votes in the presidential race had little to say about the final outcome after the U.S. Supreme Court flatly rejected their effort and the Electoral College certified President-elect Joe Biden as the winner Monday. Three of the seven, Reps. Fred Keller, Dan Meuser, and Scott Perry, issued statements saying the amicus brief they signed, which supported a Texas lawsuit targeting Pennsylvania’s votes, was only trying to ensure the proper procedures were followed. Aides to the four others, Reps. John Joyce, Mike Kelly, Guy Reschenthaler, and Glenn Thompson, did not respond to emails and phone calls Monday and Tuesday requesting comment. None formally acknowledged what the Electoral College confirmed and has been clear for weeks: that Biden won. Perry has previously said he will mount a long-shot effort to block Pennsylvania’s presidential electors when Congress formally receives them Jan. 6. It’s unclear if others from the state will join him. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) congratulated Biden as the president-elect on the Senate floor Tuesday morning. The Texas lawsuit sought to dismiss the 6.9 million presidential votes cast in Pennsylvania and allow the GOP-controlled state legislature to instead award the state’s 20 Electoral College votes. The suit, supported by 126 House Republicans and 18 state attorneys general, sought similar remedies in Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, also key battlegrounds Biden won. Several of the Pennsylvania congressmen who joined the brief are seen as potential candidates for Senate or governor in 2022.

Full Article: Pa. congressmen who wanted to throw out state’s votes still don’t acknowledge Joe Biden’s win

Pennsylvania: He Wanted to Count Every Vote in Philadelphia. His Party Had Other Ideas. | James Vireni/The New York Times

Opposing crowds of protesters gathered outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia on the night of Thursday, Nov. 5. One side chanted, ‘Count every vote!’ and the other, ‘Stop the steal!’ Police officers separated the crowds. Sheriff’s deputies guarded the convention center. National Guard troops were stationed around the city. Satellite vans lined the streets, and news crews from New York, Washington, Paris and Tokyo were broadcasting. Joseph R. Biden had at least 253 electoral votes. A win for him in Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, would decide the race. He and Donald Trump had spent more time in Pennsylvania than in any other state in the last weeks of the race and had closed out their campaigns there. The world was focused on Philadelphia and in particular on the convention center, where, two days after Election Day, the city’s mail-in ballots were still being tallied. Trump led by roughly 18,000 votes in the state. In the Friday predawn, Al Schmidt stepped from his room in the Aloft Hotel, which adjoins the convention center. His watch read 5 a.m. That meant little: Hours, and for that matter days, had lost significance for Schmidt, one of three city commissioners on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections. He had been working seven days a week since the June primary. He hadn’t slept in — he couldn’t say for sure. Three days? Maybe four. Time and the democratic process had become indistinguishable.

Full Article: He Wanted to Count Every Vote in Philadelphia. His Party Had Other Ideas. – The New York Times

Pennsylvania: Mailed ballots, tight deadlines caused a crunch for elections officials. Now, comes the reckoning. Tom Lisi/Spotlight PA

Just a week out from Nov. 3, Sara May-Silfee had hundreds of mail ballots from last-minute applications that she knew had to get to voters as soon as possible. Instead of sending the ballots to a printing and mailing company to handle, the Monroe County elections director immediately mailed them from her office, and even drove some straight to voters’ homes. “I was trying to save time and get them out as quickly as possible,” May-Silfee said. The last-minute scramble was part of a chaotic first run at Pennsylvania’s no-excuse vote-by-mail system. Among the factors that put more pressure on county officials, they said, was the Oct. 27 deadline for mail-ballot applications — just a week before Election Day. “There’s no way that somebody can apply for a mail-in ballot seven, eight, nine days before the election, expect they’re going to get that, and have enough time to return it to the county,” said Forrest Lehman, Lycoming County’s elections director. More than 3.1 million people in Pennsylvania applied to vote by mail in November, and the state’s 67 counties processed every request, according to the Department of State. That means a mail ballot should have been sent or delivered to all voters who applied.

Full Article: Mailed ballots, tight deadlines caused a crunch for Pa. elections officials. Now, comes the reckoning. – pennlive.com

Pennsylvania appellate court delivers another loss to Trump’s GOP allies seeking to void the state’s election results | Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

Full Article: Pa. appellate court delivers another loss to Trump’s GOP allies seeking to void the state’s election results

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey calls Trump’s campaign to overturn election ‘completely unacceptable’ | Jonathan Tamari/Philadelphia Inquirer

Full Article: Trump campaign to overturn Pennsylvania election results ‘unacceptable,’ Pat Toomey says

Pennsylvania: Supreme Court denies bid by Trump allies to overturn election results | Robert Barnes/The Washington Post

Full Article: Supreme Court denies bid by Trump allies to overturn Pennsylvania election results – The Washington Post

Pennsylvania: Trump asks House speaker for help overturning election results, personally intervening in a third state | Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey and Rachael Bade/The Washington Post

Full Article: Trump asks Pennsylvania House speaker for help overturning election results, personally intervening in a third state – The Washington Post

Pennsylvania: With time running out, GOP state reps file new challenge to election results, citing already rejected claims of fraud | eremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

They requested the court withdraw Pennsylvania’s final vote tally — a case they supported with already debunked conspiracy theories and a bevy of complaints that have previously been rejected by state and federal judges in earlier legal fights. Meanwhile, in a separate filing, several of the same lawmakers joined more than 30 other GOP state House colleagues in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a push from U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.) to roll back Pennsylvania’s certified results based on his arguments that the state’s vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional. All this came as President Donald Trump’s lawyers waged a smaller-scale — but likely equally quixotic fight — over roughly 2,000 mail ballots they are seeking to disqualify in Bucks County in what has become the campaign’s last active legal challenge in the state. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where the campaign is pressing that case, already rejected similar suits involving ballots from Philadelphia and Montgomery County challenged over identical issues.With legal briefs flying, Lyndsay Kensinger, a spokesperson for Gov. Tom Wolf, dismissed the Republicans’ latest efforts Monday as “just another attempt … to spread disinformation and ignore reality.”

Full Article: With time running out, GOP state reps file new challenge to Pa.’s election results, citing already rejected claims of fraud

It didn’t need to take that long: What Pennsylvania’s election could have looked like with earlier counting | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Polls had been closed in Florida for only a few hours last month when elections offices started closing up shop for the night, too. Almost all the votes were counted and reported, and there just wasn’t much left to do at that moment. News organizations had already projected President Donald Trump as the state’s winner. Things in Tampa, for example, shut down by 1 a.m., the county supervisor of elections said. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, elections officials weren’t even halfway through a 50-hour stretch without sleep, at the start of an around-the-clock vote counting process that would continue for days. “I wanted to take a 12-hour break to let people get some sleep, and it was just impossible,” said Lisa Deeley, Philadelphia’s chief elections official. “And there was no way I would be able to get away with that, because the sky would fall, and all anybody wanted was for us to keep counting.” It wasn’t until Saturday, four days after Election Day, that enough Pennsylvania votes had been counted for news organizations to declare that Joe Biden had won the state — and with it, the presidency. The long wait created an opening for false claims of fraud that Trump and his supporters have exploited. There are multiple reasons the full picture of Pennsylvania’s results took longer to emerge than in other large battleground states this year, but one stands out: Pennsylvania doesn’t allow mail ballots to be opened until Election Day. That prohibition was the major factor for the timing of Pennsylvania’s vote count, elections officials and experts said, and an Inquirer analysis of results reported by the Associated Press shows other large battleground states that began counting ballots earlier reported their results much sooner.

Full Article: It didn’t need to take that long: What Pennsylvania’s election could have looked like with earlier counting

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court moves up deadline in congressman’s bid to upend election results | Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court moved up a key deadline Sunday for Pennsylvania officials to respond to a last-minute bid by one of President Donald Trump’s top boosters in Congress to decertify the state’s elections results. Previously, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who oversees emergency matters arising out of Pennsylvania for the court, had given state election administrators until Wednesday to file their response to the appeal from U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Butler), who has argued that Pennsylvania’s vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional and that every mail ballot cast in the state should be thrown out. But on Sunday, Alito moved up the schedule in Kelly’s case by a day, ordering state officials to respond by 9 a.m. Tuesday, instead. The difference of just a day is significant, given that the previous deadline of Wednesday fell one day after what is known as the “safe harbor date,” the federal cutoff date for states to resolve any remaining election disputes and lock in their slate of electors for the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote. Many legal observers read Alito’s initial selection of Dec. 9 as a sign that the court had no intention of acting on the Kelly’s case in a way that would interfere with Pennsylvania awarding its 20 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden. The new deadline falls on the same day as the “safe harbor date” and now would give the court a few hours Tuesday to act on Kelly’s request if it chooses to do so — though Alito did not offer any explanation Sunday for the change in schedule.

Full Article: U.S. Supreme Court moves up deadline in congressman’s bid to upend Pa. election results

Pennsylvania: Supreme Court order, state GOP leaders effectively end Trump’s hope for legislators to reverse election results | Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

If its fate had not been abundantly clear already, President Donald Trump’s dream of having Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature overturn the state’s election results received what appeared to be its final death blows Thursday with a late-night order from the U.S. Supreme Court and an unequivocal statement from the General Assembly’s Republican leadership that they had no intention of doing so. The Supreme Court order came in response to a request from one of the president’s top boosters in Congress, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.), who has asked the justices to declare the state’s vote-by-mail law unconstitutional and to “decertify” Pennsylvania’s results, which cemented President-elect Joe Biden’s victory by roughly 81,000 votes last week. But just hours after Kelly filed that appeal Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. crafted a telling schedule for the case, giving state officials until Dec. 9 to file their reply. The date set by Alito — who oversees emergency petitions arising from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware for the court — comes one day after what is known as the “safe harbor date,” the federal deadline for states to resolve outstanding challenges to their elections. Once it has passed, the state’s slate of appointed electors is considered to be locked in for the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote.

Full Article: Supreme Court order, state GOP leaders effectively end Trump’s hope for Pa. legislators to reverse election results

Pennsylvania GOP Lawmakers Make Clear They Won’t Overturn The Election As Trump Wants | Alison Durkee/Forbes

Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania will not make any attempt to overturn the state’s popular vote by appointing their own presidential electors, the legislature’s leadership said in a statement Thursday, killing the Trump campaign’s hopes of contesting President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state even as other Pennsylvania Republicans take an election challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court. Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, House Speaker Bryan Cutler, Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff said they “cannot take steps to appoint electors for this election,” as the Trump campaign has expressly asked state lawmakers to do. The Trump campaign pushed the tactic at a recent unofficial hearing with some Pennsylvania Republicans and has asked the courts to order that lawmakers step in, as part of a broader long-shot strategy targeting GOP-led legislatures in battleground states that elected Biden. The lawmakers said the state legislature “lacks the authority…to overturn the popular vote” by appointing its own electors and would violate Pennsylvania’s Election Code and Constitution if they did, as well as set a bad precedent.

Full Article: Pennsylvania GOP Lawmakers Make Clear They Won’t Overturn The Election As Trump Wants

Pennsylvania: US Supreme Court again asked to block Biden win | Marc Levy/Associated Press

Fresh off another rejection in Pennsylvania’s courts, Republicans on Thursday again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state, while the state’s lawyers say fatal flaws in the original case mean justices are highly unlikely to grant it. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of northwestern Pennsylvania and the other plaintiffs are asking the high court to prevent the state from certifying any contests from the Nov. 3 election, and undo any certifications already made, such as Biden’s victory, while its lawsuit is considered. They maintain that Pennsylvania’s expansive vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional because it required a constitutional amendment to authorize its provisions. However, in a sign that the case is likely too late to affect the election, Justice Samuel Alito ordered the state’s lawyers to respond by Dec. 9, a day after what is known as the safe harbor deadline. That means that Congress cannot challenge any electors named by this date in accordance with state law. Biden beat President Donald Trump by more than 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, a state Trump had won in 2016. Most mail-in ballots were submitted by Democrats. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court threw out the case Saturday. Kelly’s lawyers sought an injunction Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, then withdrew it while they asked the state’s high court to halt any certifications until the U.S. Supreme Court acts. The state’s justices refused Thursday, and Kelly’s lawyers promptly refiled the case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Full Article: Supreme Court again asked to block Biden win in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Republicans Say Supreme Court Could Yet Upend Vote | Bob Van Voris/Bloomberg

Pennsylvania Republicans who sued to block additional steps to certify the state’s election results claim there’s a “reasonable possibility” the U.S. Supreme Court will take up their long-shot appeal and a “fair prospect” the justices will rule in their favor. Republican plaintiffs led by U.S. Representative Mike Kelly on Wednesday asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to grant an emergency delay of its ruling allowing state officials to complete their certification of results in favor of President-elect Joe Biden and other candidates. They said the status quo needed to be preserved while they try to appeal their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though President Donald Trump has often mused that the Supreme Court and its 6-3 conservative majority could deliver the election to him, legal experts doubt the court will get involved in any election disputes, especially since Biden’s electoral vote lead is large enough that no one case would change the results. Pennsylvania has argued that certification of Biden’s victory over Trump is complete, but the plaintiffs claim there are several steps that remain. The Electoral College vote to certify the presidential election results doesn’t take place until Dec. 14. The lawsuit claimed that a 2019 expansion of mail-in voting in the state was illegal under the state constitution. A Pittsburgh judge initially granted them an injunction, but the state supreme court overturned that decision and threw the case out on Saturday.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans Say Supreme Court Could Yet Upend Vote – Bloomberg

Trump’s Pennsylvania allies appeal legal bid to overturn the election to Supreme Court, even as Barr says there’s no evidence of widespread fraud | Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

Even as the nation’s top prosecutor said Tuesday that the U.S. Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread voting fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump and his allies in Pennsylvania persisted with their unsupported claims of a stolen election and sought to revive rejected legal bids to overturn the results. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Butler), one of Trump’s top boosters in Congress, turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to issue an emergency order decertifying the state’s returns, which declared President-elect Joe Biden the victor by some 81,000 votes. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, continued his barnstorming of battleground states that started with a raucous GOP rally in Gettysburg last week by announcing plans for a similar event on “election irregularities” in Michigan on Wednesday. But despite the continued refusal of the president and his allies to concede his loss, Attorney General William Barr broke significantly with them Tuesday during an interview with the Associated Press, saying there was little reason to doubt the results. He said: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in this election.”

Full Article: Trump’s Pa. allies appeal legal bid to overturn the election to SCOTUS, even as Barr says there’s no evidence of widespread fraud

Pennsylvania: Trump allies ask Supreme Court to reverse ruling on mail-in ballots | Robert Barnes and Elise Viebeck/The Washington Post

Full Article: Trump allies ask Supreme Court to reverse Pennsylvania ruling on mail-in ballots – The Washington Post

Pennsylvania statehouse Republican groups cling to baseless election claims as lawmaking and legal chances fade | Sam Dunklau/WITF

Pennsylvania’s state lawmaking session ended Monday, and with it, any chance for legislative intervention seeking to overturn the state’s election results. Despite courts dismissing two separate election-related lawsuits over the weekend, some Republican lawmakers have spent the session’s closing days pushing evidence-free claims about a fraudulent election. On the House side, more than 20 state representatives signed on to a co-sponsorship memo for a resolution calling on state leaders to delay vote certification — which occurred last week in the presidential race. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate. Both resolutions include baseless claims of “substantial irregularities” with mail-in voting and accuses the Department of State and state Supreme Court of infringing on the legislature’s ability to determine election matters. House GOP leaders said Saturday there isn’t enough time left in the session to consider it, but have vowed to “further investigate” the election when the next session begins in January. “Our chamber voted to call for a complete audit of the election, a process we plan to see completed into the next session as well,” House Speaker Bryan Cutler said in a statement.

Full Article: Statehouse Republican groups cling to baseless election claims as lawmaking and legal chances fade | WITF

Pennsylvania Supreme Court tosses GOP congressman’s suit seeking to throw out all ballots cast by mail | Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The last active legal challenge to Pennsylvania’s presidential election results was tossed Saturday by the state’s highest court, which balked at a request from one of President Donald Trump’s top boosters in Congress to disenfranchise some 2.6 million voters by throwing out every ballot cast by mail. Had Kelly and the suit’s seven other Republican plaintiffs been forthright in their concerns over the constitutionality of the mail-voting statute, the court found, they would have filed their legal challenge before the new law was used in a primary and general election and would not have waited only until after it had become apparent that their favored candidate had lost. “It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” Justice David N. Wecht wrote in an opinion concurring with the full court’s terse, three-page order. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.” A spokesperson for Kelly did not respond to requests for comment after the ruling Saturday evening. Sean Parnell — one of the suit’s other plaintiffs, who lost a bid this month to unseat incumbent Rep. Conor Lamb (D., Pa.) — declared in a tweet: “It’s not over. This was not unexpected. Stay tuned.” (Running in the GOP primary this spring, Parnell had endorsed the new “bipartisan system” created by the state’s vote-by-mail law in a tweet and encouraged his supporters to use it.)

Full Article: Pennsylvania Supreme Court tosses GOP congressman’s suit seeking to throw out all ballots cast by mail

Pennsylvania: US appeals court rejects Trump appeal over election results | Maryclaire Dale/Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s legal team suffered yet another defeat in court Friday as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected its latest effort to challenge the state’s election results. Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judge’s assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.” “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote for the three-judge panel. The case had been argued last week in a lower court by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who insisted during five hours of oral arguments that the 2020 presidential election had been marred by widespread fraud in Pennsylvania. However, Giuliani failed to offer any tangible proof of that in court. U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann had said the campaign’s error-filled complaint, “like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together” and denied Giuliani the right to amend it for a second time.

Full Article: US appeals court rejects Trump appeal over Pennsylvania race