Supreme Court Won't Hear Pennsylvania Election Case

Monday is shaping up to be a rough day for Donald Trump at the Supreme Court. Not only did justices clear the way for prosecutors to receive his tax returns, they declined to hear a challenge to the Election 2020 results, reports the Hill. On the latter, the court refused to hear a challenge brought by Pennsylvania Republicans regarding their state's decision to extend the deadline for mail-in ballots because of the pandemic. Only three justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—said the court should take the case, one short of the minimum four required. In their dissents, Alito and Thomas acknowledged that the case would've had no impact on who won the election given the number of votes involved. About 10,000 ballots were received during the extra three-day window, and Biden won by more than 80,000 votes, per Politico.

"A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election,"
wrote Alito, per the Washington Post. But, he added, "a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections." Thomas made a similar point. "That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election," he wrote. "But that may not be the case in the future." He called the decision to pass up the case "inexplicable." Neither Chief Justice John Roberts nor Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett signed on to the dissents. (On Monday, Dominion Voting Systems sued the founder of MyPillow over his allegations of voting fraud.)