U.S. President Donald Trump attends a medal ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on December 3, 2020.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected efforts by Republicans to undo President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania.
The Supreme Court rejected a petition from Trump ally U.S. Representative Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican, who argued that virtually all of the state's postal ballot papers were illegal.
The move completes one of President Donald Trump's last remaining avenues to dismiss the 2020 election results in court, although some far-fetched legal cases are still pending.
The decision was announced in an order with no identified disagreement, as is typical of cases treated in an emergency.
The entire order from the court read: "The injunction brought before Justice [Samuel] Alito and referred to the court by him is denied."
Trump has refused to concede Biden even though the Democratic former vice president is expected to win 306 votes on the electoral college, 36 more than the 270 he needed to win.
Trump had suggested throughout the campaign and after his defeat that the Supreme Court would ultimately rule on the outcome of the race, even though the court has shown no willingness to intervene.
Three members of the bank's nine judges are Trump candidates, including Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was ratified by the GOP-controlled Senate a few days before the November 3 election.
Kelly's lawsuit alleged that state law violated the Pennsylvania Constitution by providing for absentee absentee voting. Together with other Conservatives, he asked the Supreme Court to annul the state certificate issued by Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.
Attorneys for Pennsylvania told the court that Kelly's motion was for "the most dramatic, disruptive incantations of justice in republic history."
"No court has ever passed an order revoking a governor's certificate of presidential election results," they wrote.
The lower courts sided with the state, arguing that Kelly had waited too long to take up the challenge. The Pennsylvania Act, known as Act 77, was passed in October 2019. Kelly didn't bring the lawsuit until 13 months later, after the November 3rd election.
Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro said in a statement posted on Twitter after the Supreme Court order was published that "laws matter".
Shapiro also landed an argument with Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who said Monday if the judges approve a review of the case, "I will be ready to go to the hearing."
"I think we just have to imagine how that would have gone," Shapiro tweeted.
The lawsuit is among dozens filed by Conservatives across the country to overturn the presidential election results. Overall, the lawsuits have failed, many dismissed or withdrawn, and none affected a significant number of votes.
Trump seemed slowly to recognize his vanishingly slender legal path forward. Last month, in his first full post-election interview on Fox News, he said, "Well, the problem is that getting to the Supreme Court is difficult."
However, on the previous Tuesday, Trump had raised hope.
At a Covid vaccination summit in the White House, Trump asked if "anyone has the guts, whether it is a legislature or a legislature, or whether it is a Supreme Court Justice or a series of Supreme Court judges … to do What everyone in this country knows is right. "
One final try before the judges was announced Tuesday morning from Texas.
Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an unusual lawsuit stating that the results in Pennsylvania and three other states that Biden won – Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan – should be scrapped.
Paxton wrote on the file that states had "amended the voting rules through executive or friendship suits, thereby weakening electoral integrity" and that "college votes cast by such" presidential electors appointed in those states "cannot be counted".
Legal experts dismissed the unprecedented case as unlikely to gain momentum in the Supreme Court. Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the arguments in the lawsuit were "insane."
A Kelly spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
