GOP EFFORT TO INVALIDATE VOTES DEALT SETBACK
Appeal of Pennsylvania judge’s order to delay certification brings automatic stay
Republicans faced another procedural setback in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes, as a temporary order blocking further certification of election results was stayed on appeal from state officials who had already formalized President-elect Joe Biden’s win the day before.
Legal experts said the case had little chance of success, much like the other last-ditch GOP election lawsuits pending in battleground states. Republicans have gained no substantive traction across more than two dozen cases trying to undo results favoring Biden since Election Day, and as of Tuesday, four of six states where President Donald Trump tried to overturn the outcome have certified Biden’s win.
In the Pennsylvania case, Republican plaintiffs are retroactively challenging the state’s mail-voting system, calling into question virtually every contest that took place there on Nov. 3 and asking for judges to take the unprecedented step of voiding election results across the state.
On Wednesday morning, Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, who was elected as a Republican in 2009, placed a hold on the certification process for downballot races pending an evidentiary hearing. State officials appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later Wednesday, which triggered an automatic stay of McCullough’s order. They then asked the state high court to step in and dismiss the case altogether.
“The Commonwealth Court’s Order threatens to disrupt the certification of every race in the 2020 general election; foreclose the seating of elected representatives; indefinitely postpone the December 1 start of the General Assembly’s term; undermine the will of the voters; and cast a wholly unwarranted cloud over Pennsylvania’s election results,” lawyers for the state wrote in a filing.
Legal experts said it was unlikely that judges assigned to the case would ultimately grant a request to change the rules of an election after the fact in a way that disenfranchises millions of people.
Separately, Pennsylvania Republicans sought to build support for their voter fraud claims on Wednesday with an hours-long indoor news event at a Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg.
Led by Republican state legislators, the gathering featured Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and adviser Jenna Ellis alongside Pennsylvanians who voiced suspicions that the election was dishonest based on their experiences as observers. At one point, Trump called in via Giuliani’s cellphone, telling the room and people watching online that “we have to turn the election over.”
Trump continued his claims that the election was “rigged” and again declared his own victory: “This was an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot.”
Trump had been expected to appear in person in Gettysburg, but did not after another member of his legal team tested positive for the coronavirus.
Elsewhere in the country, Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward continued her push to challenge Biden’s victory there ahead of Nov. 30, when Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is scheduled to certify results.
Ward on Tuesday asked a judge to begin examining ballots and envelopes ahead of what she said would be a formal election contest filed after certification. Arizona law allows any voter to challenge the results of an election on the grounds that illegal votes were cast or that election officials engaged in misconduct. To succeed, Ward would have to show that Trump actually received the most votes in the state, which appears unlikely given that Biden’s margin of victory is greater than 10,000 votes.
A judge has set a hearing in the case for Monday.