As court cases regarding mail-in voting and election fraud reach the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), people are beginning to follow the news regarding these cases much more closely. Thus, it is extremely irresponsible for Twitter to say that the case from Representative Mike Kelly and former US House Candidate Sean Parnell was thrown out today without dissent.
In fact, it is even ridiculous on its face to say this, after multiple court orders from Justice Alito regarding procedural flaws in vote tabulation were ignored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania last month.
What actually happened, as you can see here, was that the application for injunctive relief was denied– a far cry from the false claims that the case itself was entirely thrown out. As a matter of fact, you can find here that the case is still on the Supreme Court’s docket. Additionally, since the application was denied, requests have been filed for amicus briefs of other parties who can help in the case, which wouldn’t be happening if the case was thrown out.
So, what is injunctive relief? Well, according to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute:
“Injunctive relief is a remedy which restrains a party from doing certain acts or requires a party to act in a certain way. It is generally only available when there is no other remedy at law and irreparable harm will result if the relief is not granted. The purpose of this form of relief is to prevent future wrong. Such orders, when issued before a judgement, are known as preliminary injunctions that can be punished as contempt if not obeyed. Due to its coercive force, a grant of injunctive relief is subject to immediate review by an appellate court.“
The request in this case, which can be found here, was to prevent Governor Tom Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar from “…taking any further action to perfect the certification of the results” of the election. So while this may cause many to think that rejection of this relief is essentially an admission that the results are legitimate, this only allows the procedure to continue. Because the case has not been thrown out, the Supreme Court is still set to make a decision with regards to the legitimacy of the election. And because the commonwealth ignored court orders from Alito last month, a unanimous agreement from the Supreme Court regarding legitimate election results is highly unlikely.
Additionally, because a grant of injunctive relief would have to be reviewed by an appellate court, it’s quite possible that the reason no conservative justice granted the injunction could be because of the rapidly approaching electors deadline. Just because Pennsylvania’s procedure would be denied does not mean that the procedure of the other 49 states would be as well.
Finally, it is important to remember that SCOTUS has also agreed to hear a similar suit from Texas and several other states. However, this case covers a wider range of allegations and accuses the states of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin of procedural improprieties, not just Pennsylvania. Thus, even if this case did get thrown out (which again, it didn’t), there is still a much bigger case on the docket of the Supreme Court.
It is thus extremely irresponsible for news sites like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as well as social media platforms such as Twitter to spread such egregious election disinformation at this highly contentious time. Partisan media outlets may have an interest in declaring the election a done deal, but nothing they say changes the facts surrounding ongoing court cases.
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