Pennsylvania Republicans File Emergency Lawsuit to Block Certification of Election Results

A group of Pennsylvania Republicans filed a lawsuit over the weekend to block certification of the state’s election results in an eleventh-hour attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the key battleground state. The emergency petition, filed in state court, takes issue with a voting reform bill that passed Pennsylvania’s Republican-held legislature in October last year. The lawsuit claims that the law’s allowance of no excuse mail-in voting is “unconstitutional” and seeks to block Pennsylvania counties from certifying their vote results ahead of the deadline on Monday to do so and invalidate millions of mail-in ballots cast in the 2020 election.

The group is led by Pennsylvania Representative Mike Kelly and GOP congressional candidate Sean Parnell, who has not conceded since his defeat this month by his Democratic rival, Representative Conor Lamb. Their suit names Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, the GOP-led legislature, and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar as defendants.

Meanwhile, a federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump campaign that sought to invalidate millions of votes in Pennsylvania and block the certification of the state’s election results. Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday night that he plans to appeal the decision. About 2.6 million voters in Pennsylvania cast mail ballots in the general election this month. Biden won three out of every four mail ballots cast in the state, according to an analysis of data from Pennsylvania’s state department. Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes over President Trump and is expected to be awarded the Keystone State’s coveted 20 electoral votes. States have until December 8 to resolve election disputes, and electors will meet on December 14 to formally vote for the next president.

Over the past several weeks, Trump has made allegations that voter fraud occurred on a massive scale through mail-in ballots. The president has claimed he won the election and has refused to concede even though his lawyers have not produced evidence of fraud widespread enough to alter the election outcome.