© Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesElection workers count ballots in Philadelphia, Pa., on Nov. 4, 2020.
The judge who ordered
Pennsylvania to not certify the results of the 2020
election wrote in an opinion on Friday that the Republicans who filed the related
lawsuit will likely win the case.
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Judge Patricia McCullough made the assessment as part of an opinion explaining her rationale for blocking Pennsylvania's election certification.
A group of Republican lawmakers and candidates sued the Keystone State earlier this week,
arguing that the state legislature's mail-in voting law — Act 77 — violated the commonwealth's constitution.
"Petitioners appear to have established a likelihood to succeed on the merits because petitioners have asserted the Constitution does not provide a mechanism for the legislature to allow for expansion of absentee voting without a constitutional amendment," McCullough wrote.
When ruling on an emergency injunction, judges have to consider whether the party which requested the injunction is likely to win the case or "succeed on the merits." McCullough opined that the "petitioners appear to have a viable claim that the mail-in ballot procedures set forth in Act 77 contravene" the plain language of the provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution which deals with absentee voting.
Pennsylvania said that it had certified the results of the election for president and vice president on Nov. 24 while the court was reviewing briefings from both parties. In response, the plaintiffs filed a request for an emergency injunction, arguing that that state need not have acted so fast.
"It appears that respondents' actions may have been accelerated in response to the application for emergency relief ... in an effort to preclude any remedial action by this court faster than this court was able to evaluate the application for emergency relief and the answers to it," the plaintiffs wrote.
The emergency request underlined that while Pennsylvania completed vote-counting and submitted the signed certification to the U.S. archivist,
a number of steps still remain for the formal certification process to be completed."While Respondents may have proactively attempted to avoid potential injunctive relief granted by this Court, Respondents duties with regard to finalization of the full election results are far from complete," the filing states.
Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania released a memo on Nov. 27, advising that
they will soon introduce a resolution to dispute the results of the 2020 election.
The resolution states that the executive and judicial branches of the Keystone State's government usurped the legislature's constitutional power to set the rules of the election.
The resolution "declares that
the selection of presidential electors and other statewide electoral contest results in this commonwealth is in dispute" and "urges the secretary of the commonwealth and the governor to withdraw or vacate the certification of presidential electors and to delay certification of results in other statewide electoral contests voted on at the 2020 general election."
Comment: More on the PA GOP's
memo resolution challenging the 2020 results:
The proposed text lists three steps taken by the judicial and executive branches to change the rule of the election.
First, on Sept. 17, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court "unlawfully and unilaterally" extended the deadline by which mail ballots could be received, mandated that ballots without a postmark would be treated as timely, and allowed for ballots without a verified voted signature to be accepted, the resolution says.
Second, on Oct. 23, upon a petition from the secretary of the commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that signatures on mail-in ballots need not be authenticated.
And third, on Nov. 2, the secretary of the commonwealth "encouraged certain counties to notify party and candidate representatives of mail-in voters whose ballots contained defects," the resolution says.
All of the changes are contrary to the Pennsylvania Election Code, which requires mail-in ballots to be received at 8 p.m. on Election Day, mandates that signatures on the mail-in ballots be authenticated, and forbids the counting of defective mail-in ballots.
The resolution also lists a variety of election irregularities and potential fraud, including the issues brought up by witnesses during the hearing before the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee on Nov. 25.
"On November 24, 2020, the Secretary of the Commonwealth unilaterally and prematurely certified results of the November 3, 2020 election regarding presidential electors despite ongoing litigation," the resolution states.
"The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has the duty to ensure that no citizen of this Commonwealth is disenfranchised, to insist that all elections are conducted according to the law, and to satisfy the general public that every legal vote is counted accurately."
Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, said Friday that the GOP-controlled state legislature will make a bid to reclaim its power to appoint the state's electors to the Electoral College, saying they could start the process on Nov. 30.
In other words, they were always planning on cheating.
26 House Republicans have joined in calling for
withdrawing certification of presidential electors from the secretary of state.
A band of 26 Pa. House lawmakers are circulating a memo seeking support of a proposed resolution declaring the state's certification of presidential electors and other statewide election results to be in dispute. This comes two days after President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani testified before a panel of Pennsylvania House and Senate Republican lawmakers about his allegations of voter fraud and election rigging
Sidebar: check out this Twitter thread for a new analysis of some of PA's election 'irregularities':
R.C.