Pennsylvania – 10 Losses, 2 Pending
In addition to the earlier mentioned lawsuit that the Republican National Committee initially won, the party has filed an additional 11 lawsuits in the Keystone State. All in all, they have seen 10 losses, while 2 of the lawsuits are still pending.
The Trump campaign argued that 14,000 should be thrown out due to alleged irregularities in the way the ballots were counted. However, just days later, Trump’s lawyers revised the lawsuit, retracting many of their original allegations.
Because their “strained legal arguments” were without merit, on top of the speculative accusations, a judge threw the case out. Despite attempting to appeal that decision, the Trump campaign did not secure a victory over this lawsuit.
In another case, a judge rejected the party’s attempt to delay the deadline for ballot requests.
Curing ballots is the process through which voters can fix clerical errors on their ballots. This is done to ensure that their votes count. The Republican party initially attempted to stop the process, but later withdrew from the case.
In a different federal case, Republicans initially claimed that Republican election watchers were not present during the process of vote counting. This lead them to demand that the Philadelphia County stop counting votes. When it turned out that Republican watchers were, in fact, present, a judge dismissed the case.
This is one of those cases that is still pending, however, since the Trump campaign appealed the initial decision and a judge hasn’t yet made a decision on that appeal. Time will tell if this lawsuit will be successful.
In Montgomery County, the Trump campaign sought to have the county stop counting mail-in ballots. In a surprising turn of events, they withdrew from the case though the lawsuit was still pending.
Kathy Barnette, a Republican congressional candidate challenged the way Bucks County organized ballots before counting them. Two days after filing the lawsuit, she withdrew from the case. Barnette also lost the election. Despite this, Trump’s lawyers appealed the case, only for it to be rejected by a judge.
Regarding provisional ballots, in a state court, Trump’s lawyers challenged instructions from the Secretary of State’s office. Though the request was dismissed, a judge segregated the provisional ballots in case “their validity becomes contested.”
In Northampton County, when it came to revealing the identities of people whose ballots were canceled, Republicans attempted to stop the county but later lost the case.
In an attempt to block the certification of the election results, Republicans in Pennsylvania went all the way to the state Supreme Court in order to invalidate absentee voting after the voting period ended. Suffice it to say, they lost that lawsuit as well.
By far one of the most media covered lawsuit was the campaign’s motion to intervene in a Supreme Court case around the deadline for receiving ballots in Pennsylvania. Officials could receive ballots until November 6, provided they were postmarked by Election day, as ruled by the state’s Supreme Court.
Though republicans appealed this decision, the lower court’s ruling remained in place. After taking the appeal to the high court, the decision was deadlocked at 4 – 4 since Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate.
