PENNSYLVANIA — Last-ditch efforts to reverse the presidential election results in Pennsylvania fizzled over the weekend, as the state Supreme Court rejected the latest Republican suit and lawmakers in Harrisburg simply ran out of time in their attempts to float a resolution that would withdraw the certification of electors.
President Trump's efforts to invalidate the Nov. 3 election results in Pennsylvania earned a new setback Saturday, as the state Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice a suit that sought to toss out the votes and permit the General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania's electors.
The unanimous ruling, which came late Saturday, said Republicans waited too long to file their suit challenging Act 77, a law signed by Gov. Wolf in 2019 that expanded mail-in voting.
"At the time this action was filed on November 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 Primary Election and the November 2020 General Election and the final ballots in the 2020 General Election were being tallied, with the results becoming seemingly apparent. Nevertheless, Petitioners waited to commence this litigation until days before the county boards of election were required to certify the election results to the Secretary of the Commonwealth," the court wrote in its opinion.
In a concurring statement, Justice David N. Wecht said: "Petitioners could have brought this action at any time between October 31, 2019, when Governor Wolf signed Act 77 into law, and April 28, 2020, when this Court still retained exclusive jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to it."
Further, the court said, "petitioners advocated the extraordinary position that the court disenfranchise all 6.9 million Pennsylvanians who voted in the general election and instead 'direct the General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania's electors.'"
The ruling was celebrated by Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who tweeted: "We just notched another win for democracy."
Meanwhile, in a last-ditch effort, some Republican state lawmakers on Friday drafted a resolution that would declare the results of the 2020 General Election "to be in dispute." It called the certification of results "premature" and urged the governor to withdraw the certification of presidential electors.
The resolution urged the United States Congress "to declare the selection of presidential electors in this Commonwealth to be in dispute."
However, it is impossible for Republicans to advance the resolution, leaders acknowledged Saturday.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives will not be returning to voting session before the constitutionally mandated end of session on Nov. 30, Rep. Bryan Cutler and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff confirmed in a joint statement.
"We are physically unable to consider any new legislation before the end of session. A simple resolution takes three legislative days for consideration and a concurrent resolution takes five legislative days to move through both chambers, which means we do not have the time needed to address any new resolutions in our current session," the statement said.
But Cutler and Benninghoff, in the statement, pledged that Republican efforts to "investigate the impacts of interventions by the activist Pennsylvania Supreme Court" and "confusing and conflicting guidance by the Secretary of State" will continue into the next legislative session.
"It is obvious Pennsylvania's election processes are in dire need of repair. Our work to ensure the chaos and confusion of the 2020 election are not repeated will continue in the next legislative session," the statement said.
The legislature's maneuvers were met with ridicule from Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who called it "nothing but a pitiful, desperate publicity stunt."
He tweeted: "They literally could introduce a resolution calling for a ham sandwich to be our state bird. This isn't going anywhere."
Let me be clear: This is nothing but a pitiful, desperate publicity stunt. They literally could introduce a resolution calling for a ham sandwich to be our state bird. This isn't going anywhere. The sponsors know this better than anyone. 1/2https://t.co/RYru2bSguA
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 28, 2020
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Last-Ditch Efforts To Reverse PA Election Results Fail - Patch.com
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