Pennsylvania GOP files emergency appeal with Supreme Court over late ballots
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s GOP have filed an emergency injunction with the U.S. Supreme Court in a bid to block state officials from taking any action on mail-in ballots received after Election Day as Joe Biden comes within striking distance of the White House.
The writ filed on Friday afternoon is the latest installment in a legal tug of war after Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court last month granted a three-day extension for mail-in ballot counting — a decision that SCOTUS upheld.
With Democratic nominee Joe Biden now leading in Pennsylvania, clawing his way back after trailing President Trump by 600,000 votes, the state’s GOP filed the writ with the Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State has ordered that late-arriving ballots be segregated until further notice, but Republicans claim there is no way to know whether all 67 county boards of elections were doing so.
“In short, an order from the Court is badly needed,” the suit read.
“Thus, to date, a total of 25 Pennsylvania county boards of elections have not indicated whether they are segregating the late-arriving ballots,” it went on.
“If county election boards count and do not segregate late-arriving ballots, it could become impossible for this Court to repair election results tainted by illegally and untimely cast or mailed ballots.”
Republicans and the president’s re-election campaign are preparing to mount an enormous legal effort to fight vote counts in various swing states where Biden is narrowly ahead.
As of Friday evening, the former vice president leads in the Electoral College, 264-214, according to Fox News and the AP which have called Arizona for Biden, and is ahead in most key swing states where counting continues.
Republicans, including President Trump, backed the challenge to Pennsylvania court’s ruling, arguing the three-day extension violates election law that states Election Day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.
The president’s re-election campaign have vowed that the 2020 race is far from over, filing a flurry of lawsuits, and on Friday, the Republican National Committee announced they would be dispatching lawyers to Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused the media of trying to claim the race was over when the former veep was only leading in states like Georgia by around 4,000 votes.
“It’s crazy to us that the mainstream media would call a race like Arizona for Biden when our sites still has enough votes to win. The margin right now is 47,000 votes,” she said, hitting Fox News for its controversial Arizona call.
“We cannot let this stand, and we will fight every regularity to the very last, because every voter deserves their vote to be counted, and they deserve to know whether or not these irregularities mean fraud, and we have to figure this out,” she said.
The Trump campaign and the president have repeatedly claimed the election is being “stolen” from them and that widespread “fraud” is the reason why they are trailing Biden without providing any concrete evidence to support their claims.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/pa-gop-files-emergency-appeal-with-supreme-court-over-late-ballots/