Dec. 20 (UPI) — President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign on Sunday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn several decisions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding the 2020 presidential election.
The campaign filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to overturn three Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases which it alleges “illegally changed Pennsylvania’s mail balloting law immediately before and after the presidential election” and a motion to expedite citing the Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to approve the Electoral College results which affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
“The petition seeks all appropriate remedies, including vacating the appointment of electors committed to Joseph Biden and allowing the Pennsylvania General Assembly to select their replacements,” Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement.
In the petition, the Trump campaign asks the Supreme Court to overturn three rulings by the state high court that prohibited counties from comparing mail ballot signatures to those on file, said campaigns and political parties cannot challenge ballots while they are being processed and counted, limiting observers to the vote count in Philadelphia and allowing ballots where voters did not fill out the address or date on the envelope to count.
The petition alleges that the decisions violate the Constitution’s due process clause, adding that it violates its equal protection guarantees by treating ballots differently in different counties and by taking the state legislature’s power to determine how federal elections are run.
In addition, it alleges that the decisions resulted in counting approximately 2.6 million mail ballots in violation of the law as enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature” and would mean “over 110,000 invalid ballots were illegally counted,” altering the result of the election.
“The outcome of the election for the presidency of the United States hangs in the balance because the selection of presidential electors is governed by the Constitution and congressional enactment, in addition to state law enacted by the legislature,” the motion to expedite states.
The petition also references the fact that Trump would be eligible to run again in 2024 following his loss to Biden.
“The legal issues presented by this petition, namely, whether the alteration of state election laws by non-legislative officials in the states is unconstitutional, will likely recur in future elections — including in the presidential election 2024, in which Petitioner is constitutionally eligible to run,” it states.
Earlier this month the Supreme Court denied a similar lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to stop Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin from voting in the Electoral College after alleging they broke the law by implementing pandemic-related changes to election policies.
Last week the Electoral College affirmed Biden’s win, casting 306 votes to elect him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to the White House.
