The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to even hear two cases on interference with the Pennsylvania’s state legislature’s Constitutional right and duty to run the November 3, 2020, election in their state. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled that actions taken outside of state law by election officials and by local courts, e.g., to extend the acceptance of mail-in votes by up to three days, were legal and appropriate. To hear the cases, four justices had to agree to do so, but only three agreed that the novel infringement upon the state legislature’s unique terrain was worth addressing.
Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas all foreswore any attempt to challenge the election, but thought the novel intrusion upon the Constitutional power needed to be sorted out. Justice Thomas wrote: “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.” He went further than the other two, in an eleven-page dissent, specifying that, besides the issue of the high bar of strong evidence of systemic fraud, it is also the Court’s concern to assure “that fraud will not go undetected.”
