Pa. Commonwealth Court orders halt to certification process in down ballot races
JULIAN ROUTH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
jrouth@post-gazette.com
Pennsylvania is prohibited from certifying the rest of its election results in down ballot races — and from taking any further action in regards to yesterday’s certification of the presidential race — pending a hearing on Friday in an appellate court.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, in an order signed by Judge Patricia McCullough, issued an injunction Wednesday that stops the state from continuing its certification, and intends to hear evidence in a case filed by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly and GOP congressional candidate Sean Parnell about the constitutionality of mail-in ballots.
The hearing will be held on Friday at 11:30 a.m.
The state certified the results in the race for president on Tuesday, giving its 20 electoral votes to Democrat Joe Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris. The court order said the state is prohibited from acting “to the extent that there remains any further action to perfect the certification of the results" of the races for president and vice president.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wrote on Twitter, “This order does not impact yesterday’s appointment of electors. We will be filing an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court momentarily.”
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Parnell are arguing that state lawmakers violated Pennsylvania’s Constitution by adopting Act 77 last year, which expanded the mail-in balloting option to let all qualified voters to vote by mail without an excuse. They allege that absentee voting — which required an excuse from a set of allowed reasons — was rebranded as no-excuse mail-in voting “absent any constitutional authority.”
The Republican-controlled state Legislature responded, in legal filings, that the case should be dismissed because Act 77 didn’t alter the requirements of who constitutes a qualified voter, and that the Legislature is constitutionally authorized to prescribe the method by which those electors may cast their votes.
Lawyers for Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, Gov. Tom Wolf and the state — also named as defendants in the suit — noted that Act 77 said all constitutional challenges were to be brought within 180 days of effective date, which “came and went without any facial challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77’s provisions.”
“At no time during the 180-day period, the run-up to the primary election, or the runup to the general election did Petitioners (or anyone else) claim in any proceeding that Act 77 was unconstitutional on its fact,” the state’s lawyers wrote, noting that Mr. Kelly and Mr. Parnell ran in the 2020 primary and general election, “presumably garnering votes cast on the same mail-in ballots that they now claim to be unconstitutional.”
First Published November 25, 2020, 12:58pm
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/11/25/pennsylvania-vote-election-certification-sean-parnell-mike-kelly-commonwealth-court-appeal/stories/202011250159
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