The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania lawmakers and candidates contesting the election results in the commonwealth.
In the order (pdf), the nation’s top court denied the application for injunctive relief.
The case centered around a piece of legislation that erased the requirement for people voting by mail to have a reason why they couldn’t vote in person. Plaintiffs argued it was implemented illegally and clashed with the state’s constitution despite not being passed by constitutional amendment.
A Pennsylvania judge last month said the plaintiffs would likely succeed and blocked the state from certifying the results of the election but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the injunction days later, leading to the showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Earlier Tuesday, election lawyers representing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the lawsuit.
“No court has ever issued an order nullifying the governor’s certification of presidential election results,” the lawyers added, arguing that it could set a precedent for the “judicial invalidation” of a presidential election.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush nominee, was in charge of the case. The full order from the court stated, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito speaks at Georgetown University in Washington on Feb. 23, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The order came hours after the state of Texas filed a suit straight to the Supreme Court, alleging Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin unconstitutionally changed election laws, treated voters unequally, and triggered significant voting irregularities by relaxing ballot-integrity measures.
“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections. Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
Officials from the defendant states disputed the claims in the lawsuit.
In an emailed statement, Georgia Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fuchs said: “The allegations in the lawsuit are false and irresponsible. Texas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring forward a single person who this happened to. That’s because it didn’t happen.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the motion “a publicity stunt, not a serious legal pleading.”
Jack Phillips and Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.
