Dec. 4 (UPI) — Hours after their request for appeal was rejected by Pennsylvania’s highest court, Republicans petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday asking it to stop the certification of election results that show President-elect Joe Biden had won the key battleground state.
Rep. Mike Kelly and other Republicans filed the petition with the Supreme Court asking it prevent Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar from taking further action to certify the state’s Nov. 3 election results and to nullify those they have already certified.
On Tuesday, the Republicans filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court seeking an appeal of a Saturday dismissal, but then asked the commonwealth’s high court to consider placing a temporary injunction on the certification of results.
The Thursday ask of the Supreme Court follows the highest court in Pennsylvania denying the Republicans’ petition of appeal earlier in the day.
The suit argues Act 77, a law Wolf signed in October of 2019 to expand absentee and mail-in voting, is unconstitutional as it needed to be a constitutional amendment to be legal.
“Act 77 is the Commonwealth’s latest attempt to override through legislation the protective limitations on absentee voting contained in the Pennsylvania Constitution,” the lawsuit states.
“Absent intervention by this Court, Respondents will complete the process of certifying the results of an election, and potentially cast electoral college votes for president and vice president, conducted in a manner, which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has long rejected as unconstitutional,” it continues.
Biden captured the commonwealth’s 20 all-important electoral votes by securing more than 80,000 ballots cast in his name over President Donald Trump.
Kelly filed a petition against Act 77 on Nov. 21, kicking off the litigious case that has pinged around the state’s court system.
On Saturday, Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the case “with prejudice” due to Kelly’s failure to file their challenge to the law “in a timely manner.”
The petition was filed more than a year after the law was signed into being, following the primary election and as results of the presidential race were becoming apparent.
“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 said in its opinion. “Thus, it is beyond cavil that Petitioners failed to act with due diligence in presenting the instant claim.”
Trump has yet to concede defeat in the presidential election and continues to ardently promote widely discredited claims of voter fraud.
After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected Kelly’s petition on Thursday, Wolf called on Republicans to stop trying to overturn the election.
“It’s time for the outgoing president and his misguided allies to move on,” he tweeted.
