The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear cases related to last year's presidential election and Donald Trump's challenges ...
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear cases related to last year's presidential election and Donald Trump's challenges to its outcome.
The justices declined to take up a case brought by Republicans challenging a Pennsylvania state court decision that extended the deadline to receive ballots in the election by three days due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The court rejected Trump's lawsuit against President Joe Biden over the counting of absentee ballots in Wisconsin.
And the justices also turned away a Georgia case, brought by Trump ally Lin Wood, over mail-in ballot requirements.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear additional cases related to last year's presidential election and Donald Trump's challenges to President Joe Biden's victory
In the Pennsylvania case, the justices turned away appeals by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and Republican members of the state legislature of the ruling by the state's top court ordering officials to count mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and received up to three days later.
Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented from the decision not to review the case.
But even they acknowledged the number of ballots received in the state after Election Day would not have been enough to overturn Biden's victory.
Instead, they argued, it was important for future elections.
'That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future,' Thomas wrote in his dissent. 'These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.'
The decision was yet another blow to Trump and his legal challenges to the November contest. The former president made no legal traction in his effort to overturn the election.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to get involved in these election cases.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to get involved in Trump's challenges to the election
The Supreme Court refused to hear cases on Pennsylvania's three-day ballot extension both before and after the election
Both before and after the election, Trump and his supporters tried to get the Supreme Court to throw out the three-day extension on counting ballots.
On Oct. 19, the justices deadlocked 4-4 on a request for a stay that would have blocked the three-day extension.
And, in December, the justices turned down a bid by Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania to decertify Biden's win in the state.
Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes. The dispute concerned just 9,428 ballots out of 6.9 million cast in the state. The Supreme Court already had rejected a Republican request to block the lower court ruling.
No comments