Judge blocks Pennsylvania election certification

FPI / November 26, 2020

Pennsylvania state officials have been ordered not to certify results of the 2020 election.

Commonwealth Judge Patricia McCullough on Nov. 25 ordered the state to not take any further steps to complete the certification until her court holds a hearing on an election lawsuit on Nov. 27.

“To the extent that there remains any further action to perfect the certification of the results of the 2020 General Election for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States of America, respondents are preliminarily enjoined from doing so, pending an evidentiary hearing to be held on Friday,” the judge wrote in her order.

“Respondents are preliminarily enjoined from certifying the remaining results of the election, pending the evidentiary hearing.”

Meanwhile, in Nevada, a judge has agreed to let the Trump campaign present evidence contending that fraud and illegalities plagued the state’s election. President Donald Trump's team says it has more than enough evidence to reverse Joe Biden's lead and set an example for other state challenges.

In Pennsylvania, McCullough is presiding over a lawsuit brought by Republican lawmakers and candidates against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, and the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

The plaintiffs allege that Pennsylvania’s vote-by-mail statute — Act 77 — is in violation of the state’s constitution.

“Act 77 is the most expansive and fundamental change to the Pennsylvania voting code, implemented illegally, to date,” the lawsuit, filed in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, states.

“As with prior historical attempts to illegally expand mail-in voting by statute, which have been struck down going as far back as the Military Absentee Ballot Act of 1839, Act 77 is another illegal attempt to override the limitations on absentee voting prescribed in the Pennsylvania Constitution, without first following the necessary procedure to amend the constitution to allow for the expansion.”

The plaintiffs include Rep. Mike Kelly, Republican congressional candidate Sean Parnell, and Pennsylvania House of Representatives candidate Wanda Logan.

Marc Elias, one of the top attorneys leading the Democrats’ post-election legal battles, called the lawsuit frivolous.

“Republican Congressman Mike Kelly has filed a new frivolous lawsuit in Pennsylvania seeking to block the state from certifying the election results and having the state legislature choose electors,” Elias tweeted on Nov. 21. “This is absolutely shameful.”

Trump responded to Elias, tweeting: “This is not at all frivolous. It is brought on behalf of one of the most respected members of the United States Congress who is disgusted, like so many others, by an Election that is a fraudulent mess. Fake ballots, dead people voting, no Republican Poll Watchers allowed, & more!”

In Nevada, a Dec. 3 date was set to allow for the hearing of 15 depositions. The Trump campaign said it plans to present its evidence that could result in the rejection of tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Democratic Clark County where Biden ballots outnumbered Trump ballots by 91,000 in unofficial results.

“BIG news in Nevada: a Judge has allowed NV Republicans to present findings of widespread voter fraud in a Dec. 3rd hearing. Americans will now hear evidence from those who saw firsthand what happened—a critical step for transparency and remedying illegal ballots. Stay tuned,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tweeted.

American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, one of those heading the Nevada case, told the Washington Examiner: “It gives us a real chance, if to do nothing else, to begin to show this historic level of fraud.”

In its court filing from Nov. 17, the Trump team made several allegations of voter fraud, including votes by nonresidents and the dead.

The Trump team's biggest claim was that the signatures on hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were not verified by human officials, as required by law.

"What’s more, they found that officials used a machine to verify signatures, apparently against the rules, and even those machines were plagued with problems," the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard noted.

Schlapp said he is eager to get a chance to finally present evidence of fraud and for the campaign to present the thousands of examples of signature machine errors. Since many states require signature verification, that is where the campaign’s fraud investigation is focused.

“The biggest thing which is true in all of these states we're talking about including in Georgia where a third of the ballots were cast in the mail, Nevada half the ballots were cast in the mail, with no legal signature verification, certainly not in Clark County, that is the big treasure trove of illegal balloting in all of these states,” Schlapp said on Fox late Tuesday.

The campaign also has testimony from a blind person who claims somebody else voted for her and that she was barred from voting as a result. And they plan to present evidence that Native Americans were offered bribes of TVs and gas cards for their vote.

“Our filing said we have over 15 individual and tens of thousands more from mail-in fraud. We have enough to switch the outcome,” Schlapp told the Examiner.

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