Supreme Court Throws Out Final GOP 2020 Election Case - Forbes

Topline

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed as moot a Republican-led case challenging Pennsylvania’s voting rules in the November election Monday, bringing an end to the GOP’s post-election legal campaign five months after Election Day and delivering a blow to Republicans’ efforts to exert more control over future elections.

Key Facts

The case, Bognet v. Degraffenreid, challenged a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that expanded the battleground state’s deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, arguing that the state’s voting rules can only be set by state legislatures under the U.S. Constitution.

The legal argument in the case was used repeatedly by Republicans including President Donald Trump and his legal team in their lawsuits trying to overturn the presidential election—despite being repeatedly struck down, including by a Trump appointee.

Multiple conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices suggested in opinions around the election that they could possibly rule in favor of that theory, however, raising fears among Democrats the high court could give Republican-led state legislatures free rein to impose voting rules that cannot be overturned by state officials or courts.

Though the election is over, attorneys for former Republican congressional candidate Jim Bognet, who brought the case, argued the Supreme Court should still hear the case so it can affect future elections, saying the court should “begin the process of lifting the ‘shroud of doubt’ that hangs over this area of the law.”

The Supreme Court vacated the decision Monday and directed the lower appeals court to dismiss the case as moot, which is what the GOP plaintiffs wanted the court to do in the event they decided not to take up the case.

According to Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias, the case was the last outstanding GOP-led post-election case.

Big Number

64. That’s how many post-election cases GOP plaintiffs either lost or dismissed, according to a tally kept by Elias.

Crucial Quote

"A majority of Supreme Court justices could well believe that state legislatures have extraordinary power when it comes to setting the rules for federal elections, even if it means overruling state supreme courts relying on state constitutions to limit legislative power," election law expert Rick Hasen told CNN Saturday about the potential ramifications if the Supreme Court had taken up the case. "It would be a remarkable shift in election power in the states."

Key Background

The Supreme Court repeatedly threw out the GOP’s post-election legal challenges in the wake of Election Day, declining to hear cases brought by the Trump campaign and other allies like far-right attorney Sidney Powell despite Republicans hoping the conservative-leaning court would act in their favor. The court’s refusal to aid in the legal effort to overturn the election has drawn Trump’s ire even months after Election Day, as the former president said in an April statement the justices “didn’t have courage to do what they should have done for America.”