On a Tuesday in early December 2020, the highest court in the United States declined, without explanation and without a single recorded dissent, to halt the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. It is a quiet moment in a long and turbulent season, in which a defeated incumbent has refused to accept the verdict of voters and has sought refuge in the courts. Each closed door adds weight to a simple pattern: the machinery of law is being asked to undo a choice the public has already made, and it is declining to do so.
US Supreme Court Rejects Trump Allies' Bid to Block Pennsylvania Vote Certification
The Court gave no reasons, and no justice dissented.
Mark
Why does a one-line denial from the Court matter so much?
Mimi
Because it closed off the one route Trump's allies most counted on. They asked the justices to freeze electoral operations in Pennsylvania, and the Court simply declined.
Luke
Worth noting what we don't know. The Court gave no reasoning, so any reading of why is inference.
Mark
But no one dissented, and three of the nine were Trump appointees.
Mimi
Right, that's the striking part. The unanimity is confirmed even if the reasoning is absent.
Luke
Agreed on the facts. But the report says the Court signaled it wasn't inclined to enter post-election litigation. That's an interpretation of the denial, not something the justices stated.
Mark
Does the Florida comparison hold up?
Mimi
The article uses it as contrast. In 2000 Bush led by 537 votes. Here Biden's lead is put at seven million.
Luke
And that seven million figure is the article's number. I'd want to know how it was counted before leaning on it hard.
Mark
What about Texas?
Mimi
Texas filed an appeal asking to invalidate results in four states. Experts weren't optimistic.
Luke
Which is a forecast, not an outcome. Nothing is decided there yet.
El Pulso
- A Supreme Court request to freeze Pennsylvania's vote certification was turned down with no reasons given and no justice dissenting.
- A challenge to mail-in ballots, brought by a Republican congressman, has already lost once in the state supreme court before reaching Washington.
- Trump has refused to concede to Joe Biden, who leads by roughly seven million votes, while dozens of lawsuits across key states have collapsed.
- Texas has now asked the Court to overturn results in four states, and experts doubt it will fare any better than the Pennsylvania effort.
On a Tuesday in early December 2020, the highest court in the United States declined, without explanation and without a single recorded dissent, to halt the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. It is a quiet moment in a long and turbulent season, in which a defeated incumbent has refused to accept the verdict of voters and has sought refuge in the courts. Each closed door adds weight to a simple pattern: the machinery of law is being asked to undo a choice the public has already made, and it is declining to do so.
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court turned away a request from allies of Donald Trump to block the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. The Court offered no reasons, and none of the nine justices noted a dissent. Three of them were appointed by Trump himself, which made the silence all the more striking.
The request grew out of a case brought by Republican congressman Mike Kelly, who challenged the legality of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground that Trump won four years ago and Biden carried in November. The challenge had already failed in the state supreme court. The plaintiffs then asked the national Court to freeze electoral operations in the state while they built their arguments. By refusing, the justices closed that path and signaled reluctance to intervene in post-election disputes.
The ruling is one more setback in a long string of them. More than a month after the November 3 election, Trump still has not conceded to Biden, who leads by seven million votes. Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits in several key states, and nearly all have been thrown out.
Trump had hoped the Court would step in, and its rightward tilt gave him reason for hope. Yet the justices have shown their decisiveness before, most notably in 2000, when they halted the Florida recount that decided a race by just 537 votes. The margin now is of a different order entirely.
The same Tuesday brought another filing: Texas, under Republican leadership, asked the Court to invalidate results in four key states. Experts are not optimistic. For now, the Court's silence in Pennsylvania stands as its answer, and the Texas petition is the next test of whether the justices will engage with these challenges at all.
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court turned away a request from allies of Donald Trump to block the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. The Court gave no reasons for its decision, and none of the nine justices noted a dissent. Three of those justices were appointed by Trump himself.
The request came out of a case brought by Republican congressman Mike Kelly, which challenged the legality of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The state is a crucial battleground. Trump won it four years ago, and Joe Biden carried it in the November vote.
The case had already failed once. After the Pennsylvania state supreme court rejected it, the plaintiffs took it to the national Supreme Court. They asked the justices to freeze all electoral operations in the state while they developed their arguments. By dismissing the request, the Court ended that procedure and signaled that it was not inclined to get involved in litigation after an election.
The Pennsylvania ruling is the latest setback in a long run of them. More than a month after the November 3 election, Trump still has not conceded to Biden, the Democrat, who leads by seven million votes. He continues to make claims of fraud that have no basis. He and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits in several key states, and almost all of them have been thrown out by the courts.
Trump had hoped the Supreme Court would step in on his side. He has tipped its bench solidly to the right, and there is a precedent that shows how decisive the Court can be. In 2000, it halted a recount in Florida, where Republican George W. Bush led Democrat Al Gore by only 537 votes. That decision allowed Bush to win the election. The margin this time is of a different order entirely.
The Pennsylvania case is not the only one headed for the justices. On the same Tuesday, the Republican-led state of Texas filed another appeal to the Supreme Court. It asks the Court to invalidate results in four key states. Experts were not optimistic about its chances of success.
For now, the Court's silence in the Pennsylvania matter stands as its answer. The Texas filing is the next test of whether the justices will engage with any of these challenges.
Citas Notables
Experts were not optimistic about the chances of success for Texas's appeal seeking to invalidate results in four states.— Report on the Supreme Court's decision
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