US Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to expedite election appeals
January 11: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to expedite appeals filed by President Donald Trump and his allies to reverse his election defeats in key states, formally confirming that the justices won’t intervene before President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump and his supporters filed their appeals weeks ago with the goal of nullifying Biden’s Electoral College victory before Congress met to count the votes on Jan. 6. The justices rejected the bids to expedite without comment or public dissent as part of a list of orders released Monday, Bloomberg reported.
The appeals, including cases filed by lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell as well as the Trump campaign, claim without foundation that Biden’s victory was the product of widespread fraud, caused in part by the use of mail-in ballots. The appeals challenge Biden’s wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.
The court had already rejected two Trump-backed bids to reverse Biden wins in pivotal states, each time without public dissent from any of the nine justices.
The court could agree later to use a lingering 2020 dispute to reset the rules for future presidential contests. In that case, Republicans say the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unconstitutionally usurped the power of the state legislature by allowing three extra days for ballots to arrive because of the pandemic and anticipated mail delays.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the Pennsylvania case before the Nov. 3 election, but three conservative justices indicated at the time they thought the state court had overstepped.
The cases affected by Monday’s orders are Donald J. Trump v. Bookvar, 20-845; Trump v. Biden, 20-882; Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, 20-883; Wood v. Raffensperger, 20-799; Ward v. Jackson, 20-809; Kelly v. Pennsylvania, 20-810; and King v. Whitmer, 20-815.
In a separate case, the high court on Monday turned away a Democratic bid to force universal vote-by-mail in Texas, leaving intact a state law that lets people cast no-excuse absentee ballots only if they are 65 or older.
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