Republican plaintiffs in Pennsylvania have abandoned a court challenge that they brought against presidential election results in the state. The plaintiffs — including a group of members of the Pennsylvania state legislature — had sought to compel the decertification of the election results in Pennsylvania, where President-elect Joe Biden decisively won. In a recent ruling, a Pennsylvania state court dismissed the plaintiffs’ case on the grounds that they’d waited too long to file their challenge in the first place, although it’s worth noting that the court might have found issues with the challenge even if that issue was eliminated, considering the rapid pace of Republican court losses across the country.
🚨NEW: Another one of the meritless lawsuits filed in PA is dismissed.
Trump and his allies are 1-55 in post-election litigation.https://t.co/mbkVpU2JdX
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) December 10, 2020
Under Pennsylvania law, the deadline for “election contests” in court over the presidential election results in Pennsylvania was November 23, but the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania case in question did not file their lawsuit until December 4, eleven days later. The Republican plaintiffs’ apparent disregard for the basic legal demand for timely legal filings regarding the presidential election results is pretty astounding. In their new court filing announcing their abandonment of the case after the recent ruling against them, the plaintiffs don’t include a lengthy explanation. Instead, there’s simply a procedural request to “kindly mark this action discontinued as to all defendants.”
This week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — a Republican who’s reportedly been under FBI investigation for allegedly using his position for the benefit of a political donor — announced a lawsuit in which he’s seeking to invalidate the results in Pennsylvania and three other states where Biden also won. A full 17 Republican state Attorney Generals and President Donald Trump’s own team subsequently joined the case in support of Paxton’s position, but there’s no particular indication that the U.S. Supreme Court, which has jurisdiction over interstate disputes, will rule in the GOP’s favor. Legitimate evidence for election fraud hasn’t magically materialized in the time between the GOP’s previous dozens of court losses and this case.
This week, the so-called “safe harbor” deadline in the electoral college process passed, after which certified statewide election results are considered final under federal law, although GOP legal challenges against the results have continued. Trump’s allies have not come remotely close to changing the election outcome in a single state.
