Pa. Supreme Court rejects GOP lawsuit seeking to throw out mail-in ballots

President and 1968 graduate Donald Trump's final active legal challenge against Pennsylvania's election results was dismissed by the state Supreme Court on Saturday, protecting the almost 2.6 million mail ballots the Trump campaign was seeking to invalidate.

The lawsuit, filed by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) on Nov. 21, claimed, without widespread evidence, that the state law authorizing mail-in ballots in 2019 was unconstitutional. The suit also sought to have the GOP-controlled General Assembly substitute electors for those chosen by a majority of Pennsylvania voters which the Court stated lacked basis in law, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“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 agreeing with the Court’s three-page order.

In a unanimous decision, Court justices concluded that Kelly had waited months too late to challenge the mail-in voting law. The challenge would have been considered if the suit had been filed before the new law was used in a primary and general election and also before the campaign's favored candidate had lost the election, the Inquirer reported.

In addition to Kelly’s case, more than 11 other direct attempts by the Trump campaign to challenge Pennsylvania election results have failed on grounds of lack of evidence. 

The Inquirer reported that Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough issued an order to halt the state from further certifying its election results pending a hearing on the campaign's case. 

While President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state has already been certified, this new decision could have barred newly elected and reelected lawmakers from serving in the General Assembly’s next term. The state supreme court, however, dismissed the order Saturday night. 

Agreeing with many national legal and political experts, Penn professors have previously denounced the Trump campaign’s legal actions as “frivolous," arguing the lawsuits attack the very foundation of the American electoral system.