Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom rejects a GOP lawsuit to overturn the election outcomes

President Donald Trump’s horrible week in court docket continued Saturday with one more hostile ruling from a Pennsylvania court docket.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom dominated unanimously {that a} swimsuit introduced by Rep. Mike Kelly and different Republicans difficult the state’s mail-in voting legislation — handed in October 2019 — was filed too lengthy after it was handed, and due to that, rejected a requested evaluation of the legislation.

“The need of due diligence demonstrated on this matter is unmistakable,” the court docket wrote in an unsigned per curiam opinion. “Petitioners filed this facial problem to the mail-in voting statutory provisions multiple yr after the enactment of Act 77.”

The court docket additionally overturned a decrease court docket injunction blocking Pennsylvania from shifting forward with certifying its election. The swimsuit was dismissed with prejudice, placing a everlasting finish to that avenue of problem.

As Democratic voting-rights lawyer Marc Elias identified on Twitter, the lawsuit, had it succeeded, would have had a further, possible unintended impact: It will even have blocked certification of Kelly’s personal election ends in Pennsylvania’s 16th District.

Pennsylvania licensed its presidential election outcomes on Tuesday, sealing President-elect Joe Biden’s win within the essential swing state. However a choose instituted a brief injunction on the certification that very same day — one the secretary of state deliberate to problem within the state Supreme Courtroom. With Saturday’s ruling, that certification in cleared to proceed. Biden beat Trump by greater than 80,000 votes within the closing tally to say Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.

Kelly was joined within the swimsuit by onetime Pennsylvania congressional candidate Sean Parnell and 6 different residents of the Keystone State, together with a state Home candidate who claimed simply 5.5 p.c of the vote in her final race. The plaintiffs alleged that the state’s mail-in voting legislation was flat-out unconstitutional, and proposed two doable cures: both the invalidation of all mail ballots solid within the election or permitting the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania common meeting to pick a slate of presidential electors, somewhat than Pennsylvania voters.

Both treatment would have disenfranchised voters on a scale unprecedented within the fashionable period, whereas handing the state to Trump — and each had been rejected out of hand by the court docket.

“It’s past cavil that Petitioners didn’t act with due diligence in presenting the moment declare,” the court docket wrote. “Equally clear is the substantial prejudice arising from Petitioners’ failure to institute promptly a facial problem to the mail-in voting statutory scheme, as such inaction would outcome within the disenfranchisement of tens of millions of Pennsylvania voters.”

The Trump marketing campaign can’t cease dropping in court docket

As Pennsylvania Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman identified in a tweet after the state Supreme Courtroom resolution was printed, Saturday’s ruling is in no way the one latest loss by the Trump marketing campaign and GOP members trying to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election.

In Pennsylvania alone final week, the Trump marketing campaign misplaced twice in fast succession in federal court docket. Most just lately, a Trump-nominated choose on the Third Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, Stephanos Bibas, wrote in a scathing resolution that the president’s lawsuit difficult Pennsylvania election outcomes had “no advantage.”

“Free, honest elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Bibas wrote within the 21-page unanimous resolution. “Expenses of unfairness are severe. However calling an election unfair doesn’t make it so. Expenses require particular allegations after which proof. We now have neither right here.”

In complete, the president’s flailing authorized technique has resulted in a 1-39 document earlier than varied state and federal courts across the nation, in keeping with Elias. No proof of voter fraud or different irregularities has surfaced anyplace, regardless of false claims by Trump and his allies in any other case, and a federal election certification deadline on December eight is closing in.

That, nevertheless, hasn’t put a damper on the president’s nonsensical arguments about election fraud.

“The variety of ballots that our Marketing campaign is difficult within the Pennsylvania case is FAR LARGER than the 81,000 vote margin. It’s not even shut. Fraud and illegality ARE an enormous a part of the case,” Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday, although there isn’t a proof of any fraud or illegality and Pennsylvania has already licensed its election outcomes.

Whilst Republican court docket challenges fail, different potential avenues for Trump to overturn the election outcomes — and the democratic course of — are fading quick.

Particularly, one fringe principle promulgated by Trump holds that Republican-controlled state legislatures, just like the one in Pennsylvania, can appoint their very own slate of Trump electors, no matter how the state voted. Trump tweeted as a lot final week, writing that “hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures could have the COURAGE to do what needs to be executed,” and Republicans hoped to Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom would pave the best way for the legislature to become involved there.

It’s not, nevertheless, a possible scheme. Past the truth that the court docket rejected the concept, the idea isn’t backed by something “even remotely near a related majority” of state lawmakers, and even when it had been, it could actually face a veto from Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor and a swift sequence of authorized challenges.

That the US Supreme Courtroom may by some means overturn the election outcomes — a technique alluded to by Trump senior authorized adviser Jenna Ellis in a Friday tweet after the marketing campaign’s Third Circuit loss — can also be vanishingly unlikely to succeed. In accordance with College of Texas legislation professor Steve Vladeck, “the Trump marketing campaign has the fitting to ask #SCOTUS to evaluation this resolution, and it has the fitting to ask the Courtroom for an injunction pending enchantment. However as Choose Bibas’s opinion makes clear, attempt as they could, this lawsuit has no likelihood of succeeding.”

Finally, the Trump marketing campaign by no means had proof for its claims of fraud, as quite a lot of judges and justices have now identified. And its different efforts have failed, or are actively within the strategy of failing, as states transfer ahead with certifying their election outcomes. The president might maintain tweeting — however beginning at midday on January 20, 2021, he gained’t be the president any longer. Biden will probably be.