President Donald Trump’s hopes of winning a critical state such as Pennsylvania may have suffered yet another defeat as an important lawsuit filed by a congressman was rebuffed by the state’s Supreme Court, the Guardian reports.
The lawsuit had sought to stop the state from certifying the results of the recently held November 3rd presidential poll. The lawsuit filed by Mike Kelly, a congressman (R-Pa), had sought to contest the mail-in voting legislation in the state as a breach of the constitution.
However, the Supreme Court Justices consensually threw out the lawsuit which Kelly had filed a week ago. The Justices disagreed with the plaintiff, who prayed the court to invalidate about 2.5 million mail-in votes cast by mostly Democrats. They opined that the plaintiff did not produce evidence that the ballots were fraught with irregularities.
The state’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro, applauded the decision of the court. Kelly and other plaintiffs were seeking that the court throws out the millions of votes or order the lawmakers in the state, made up mostly of Republicans, to choose the presidential electors.
Justice David Wecht, in his opinion, said that the prayer by the plaintiff for the court to direct the lawmakers to choose the presidential electors went against the law of the state, which has existed for almost a hundred years, which authorized only the state’s popular vote the right to select presidential electors.
However, Republicans on the court suggested the claim of the plaintiff as regards the state’s mail-in voting law was worth looking into. Gov. Tom Wolf had on Tuesday certified Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election in the state. He had won over President Donald Trump by over 80,000 votes. Meanwhile, this was the same state Trump had coasted to victory in 2016, CNN reports.
However, Judge Patricia McCullough had ruled that certification of any contest in the state, including congressional election, be delayed for the time being. The governor had gone to the state’s Supreme Court, arguing that there was no admissible reason for the Judge’s ruling.
On Friday, an earlier federal appeals court had dismissed another lawsuit challenging the outcome of the state’s result. The suit brought on by Trump’s team was termed as lacking in merit. The Judge had said that although election fraud was a very serious matter, there should be adequate proof when such allegations are brought before the court. The ruling had brought more than 35 the number of lawsuits that Trump’s team had lost all over the country.
Source: theguardian.com
