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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is embroiled in the high-stakes fight for postal votes in Pennsylvania, among states former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden is expected to have won on his way to win the presidential election.
Yost, a Republican, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ordered election officials to continue to accept mail-in ballots that arrived within three days of the polling day.
In a brief released Monday by a “friend of the court,” state attorneys said U.S. Supreme Court justices should overturn the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling, saying “state legislatures, and not state courts, set the rules for selecting presidential voters ”. At least, according to the record, the U.S. Supreme Court should consider whether the Pennsylvania court ruling was correct.
“States need an answer to this question, which will certainly come up in future elections. And it is important to provide this answer now because, without a ruling from this Court, doubts will continue to persist as to whether the Pennsylvania vote count was conducted in accordance with the Constitution, ”the file read, signed. by Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers. and Deputy Chief Solicitor General Michael Hendershot.
(Scroll down to read the record.)
Monday’s brief from Yost’s office supported Republican leaders in Pennsylvania and state lawmakers, who, at the behest of President Donald Trump’s campaign, asked the United States Supreme Court to reject the ballots after on polling day. Under Pennsylvania law, mail ballots must be received before election day in order to count. But the state Supreme Court extended that three-day deadline, citing the coronavirus pandemic, on condition that they are postmarked by November 3.
A group of Republican attorneys general in other states, including Louisiana, Missouri and Oklahoma, said they were filing a separate “friend of the court” case in the Pennsylvania case.
Yost’s brief did not point to widespread postal voting fraud in Pennsylvania, as Trump has repeatedly attempted to do without evidence, nor did it say that votes should not be counted after election day . Millions of Ohio voters have voted by mail for the last three elections, with a statistically insignificant number of possible irregularities, and under state law, Ohio officials will accept ballots. vote that will arrive before November 13, provided they are postmarked by November 2. .
The United States Supreme Court has previously refused to order Pennsylvania not to accept late ballots, but several conservative justices have indicated they may reconsider the issue after the election. Pennsylvania election officials have asked counties to put aside late ballots, but also to count them. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reiterated on Friday that counties should separate late ballots.
Ballots received after 8 p.m. on Election Day appear to be a small fragment of the total vote count in Pennsylvania. Across Pennsylvania, counties over the weekend reported receiving fewer than 8,000 late ballots, although some still estimate how many they had. Biden led Trump by 45,534 votes in Pennsylvania on Monday afternoon.
The state also has more than 85,000 provisional ballots, votes that are set aside for further consideration before they are checked and counted, according to Spotlight PA.
With all the mainstream media projecting him as the winner of the presidential election, Biden declared victory and began to prepare to take office. But Trump refused to concede and is launching a variety of legal challenges in several swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that Biden is expected to narrowly win, giving him victory.
Republican Governor Mike DeWine in a statement Monday congratulated Biden, while noting that Trump has the right to challenge the results in court.
Trump and his campaign have also brought charges of large-scale electoral fraud in Pennsylvania and other states he has lost, so far without evidence. He did not express concerns over voting procedures in Ohio, where he won by 8 points, with unofficial results. That margin could change – Ohio has more than 300,000 outstanding absentees and provisional ballots.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
Here is Yost’s repository:
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