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In Pennsylvania, postal ballots are usually due before the close of polls on election day, regardless of the postmark. The state Supreme Court extended the deadline in the state following a Democrat-backed trial, citing the coronavirus pandemic and deliverability issues within the US Postal Service.
Republicans sought to challenge the state Supreme Court’s ruling in the United States Supreme Court. The High Court first dead end, 4-4, in mid-October on an emergency appeal to block the extension of the state Supreme Court. The court then refused to take further action shortly before the election, but left open option come back after the election to make a decision. Last week, Judge Samuel Alito ordered that these late ballots are separated, but said they could still be counted if they were “counted separately”.
The 10,000 ballots are irrelevant to Biden’s victory in the critical state of the battlefield. he currently leads by more than 47,000 votes, as the state continues to count the ballots. Commonwealth Secretary Kathy Boockvar announced that approximately 94,000 provisional ballots had been sent to voters at the polls statewide on election day. Provisional ballots are issued when there is a question about the eligibility of the voter. Qualifications are verified after the election and the ballot is not counted if the voter is not eligible, so not all 94,000 ballots will be counted.
“The counties have done an impressive job of counting a record number of postal ballots and are now in the process of soliciting the provisional ballots, each of which must be considered individually,” Boockvar, a Democrat, said on Tuesday. “Millions of Pennsylvanians voted and made their voices heard in a free, fair and open election last week. I am so proud of the election officials and election officers who have worked tirelessly, in the midst of a pandemic, so that voters can decide this election.
Some voting rights experts expressed confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court would not ultimately reject late ballots in Pennsylvania, noting that voters followed the advice of their election officials at the time. But the case could instead serve as a major marker for how future election disputes would play out, they said.
For this case, “I don’t think people have to worry about this election,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center. POLITICO before the election. “I think people need to be worried about the direction of the tribunal and what it might do about voting rights in the future.”
Instead, the case could serve as an important marker on “independent legislature” theory. The theory, in short, argues that the Constitution grants the power to state legislatures to make electoral laws, and that the courts have usurped this role.
In a pair of briefs filed Monday, 11 Republican Attorneys General argued that the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court the order violated the constitution.
“Power is specifically granted to state legislatures to govern when, where and how [and] executives for their state election, ”Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who led one of the two briefs, said Monday at a press conference. The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court “has overstepped its bounds and encroached upon the authority of the legislature,” he said.
This theory was put forward perhaps most famous in the concurring opinion of the then Chief Justice William Rehnquist in Bush v. To the top, the fight against the Supreme Court which effectively ruled the 2000 presidential election. Four current judges have either categorically endorsed or signaled some level of support for Rehnquist’s theory: Clarence Thomas (who endorsed the original concurring opinion de Rehnquist), Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Alito.
Additionally, 10 of the 11 Republican attorneys general adopted the president’s arguments on widespread electoral fraud. But their brief cited isolated cases of past elections, not a generalized problem with it.
This is part of a larger assault on the legitimacy of this year’s election by the Republican Party.
In Georgia, the state’s Republican U.S. Senators – Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue – have both called on Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to step down, citing widespread wrongdoing without alleging any particular case. The state Republican Party and its House delegation both signed letters to Raffensperger with similar claims. Raffensperger strongly rejected both calls for him to step down and that there was a problem with the election.
“We’re going to make sure we’re going through the whole process, that we’re going to count all the legal ballots, and the results will be the results,” he said in a statement. interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I am a constitutional conservative. I respect the law.
The GOP’s flank on Raffensperger has sparked a case of weird bedfellows, with some voting rights groups already clashing with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office coming to the election defense.
“The questioning of our election results is doing a huge disservice to Georgian voters – and also to the tens of thousands of people who have worked to make our November 3 elections safe in the midst of a pandemic,” Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in a statement Tuesday.
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