Sen. Ted Cruz appeals to Supreme Court to quickly take up Pennsylvania election challenge

Sen. Ted Cruz is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly take up an election challenge in Pennsylvania after that state’s highest court rejected it for controversial reasons.

“Today, an emergency appeal was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the election results in Pennsylvania. This appeal raises serious legal issues, and I believe the Court should hear the case on an expedited basis,” Cruz, Texas Republican, said in a statement posted to his Senate website.

He explained that, according to the Pennsylvania Constitution, registered voters must cast ballots in person “except in narrow and defined circumstances.” That said, he noted that in late 2019, the state legislature passed a measure that authorized “universal mail-in voting” despite the state constitution’s “express prohibition.”

“This appeal argues that Pennsylvania cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. If Pennsylvania wants to change how voting occurs, the state must follow the law to do so,” Cruz, who has successfully argued cases before the Supreme Court prior to being elected to the Senate, further noted.

That alleged “illegality” was then “compounded by a partisan Democrat Supreme Court” which he said has issued a number of rulings reflecting “their political and ideological biases.”

The appeal seeks to prohibit Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Democratic Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar from “taking official action to tabulate, compute, canvass, certify, or otherwise finalized the results of the election.”

Since Pennsylvania certified its results in favor of Joe Biden last month, the appeal asks the court to issue an injunction nullifying the certification and “restore the status quo” before the certification was made, The Epoch Times reported.

About a month ago, Cruz continued, Supreme Court Justices Samual Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch “correctly” wrote that because of “the Pennsylvania court’s previous decision to count ballots received after Election Day…’there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution.’”

Cruz went on to note out that the Pennsylvania high court has already dismissed a current appeal by voters led by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) “under a legal doctrine called ‘laches,’ which essentially means the plaintiffs waited too long to bring a challenge.”

“The plaintiffs reasonably argue” that the state high court “has not applied that doctrine consistently and so they cannot selectively enforce it now,” Cruz said, noting that the Pennsylvania justices put the complainants in a “Catch-22” situation.

“Even more persuasively, the plaintiffs point out that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has also held that plaintiffs don’t have standing to challenge an election law until after the election, meaning that the court effectively put them in a Catch-22: before the election, they lacked standing; after the election, they’ve delayed too long,” the Texas Republican continued.

“The result of the court’s gamesmanship is that a facially unconstitutional election law can never be judicially challenged,” he explained.

Cruz said that under normal circumstances the U.S. Supreme Court generally remains aloof regarding state court decisions and rulings, “but these are not ordinary times.”

After citing a Reuters/Ipsos polling indicating that nearly 40 percent of Americans believe “the election was rigged” and that isn’t “healthy for our democracy,” Cruz said the situation “needs resolution” in order to dial down the “acrimony” in the country.

“I believe the U.S. Supreme Court has a responsibility to the American people to ensure that we are following the law and following the Constitution,” Cruz said. “Hearing this case — now, on an emergency expedited basis — would be an important step in helping rebuild confidence in the integrity of our democratic system.”

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