Another attempt to decertify the election results, this time brought by state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, was denied on Wednesday by the Commonwealth Court, who called the suit an improper and untimely challenge to the election.
The complaint was filed on Dec. 4 as though it were asking for a judicial remedy, when in reality it was an attempt to contest the election, the court said. The deadline for such election contests was Nov. 23.
Mr. Metcalfe filed the suit along with nine other legislators as one more last-ditch effort by Republicans to overturn the election before the federal deadline for states finalize delegates for the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote. Pennsylvania officials already certified the presidential election results, declaring Democrat Joe Biden the winner, two weeks ago.
“Although we were disappointed in the Commonwealth Court’s denial of our Emergency Application, we intend to support the legal action brought by the State of Texas in the U.S.Supreme Court, which would accomplish the same objective,” said Tom King, representing the plaintiffs in the suit.
The 33-page complaint, filed in Commonwealth Court, consisted mainly of debunked conspiracy theories and disregarded grievances that have already been addressed in numerous other court cases.
Despite alleging that “there are countless documented election irregularities and improprieties that prevent an accurate accounting of the election results in the Presidential election,” the complaint offers little proof that such irregularities occurred or affected the results of the election.
Among the evidence cited was a sworn affidavit by a 37-year-old mail truck driver from York, Pa., named Jesse Richard Morgan, who claimed to have taken absentee ballots from New York to Pennsylvania.
In a rambling, 28-page statement, Mr. Morgan said his mom caused him to become suspicious about the ballots and he began to believe someone bugged his truck after the election, but he did not report any wrongdoing to his supervisors.
“I'm not trying to sound paranoid or anything like that,” he said in an affidavit. “But it sounded really freaking crazy, like I never had this before. I have these plastic things in my cab, my truck when drove [sic] off by itself, apparently by you know when I was away from it and not like I have all this stuff.”
Asked how many ballots he had delivered, he said he was unable to estimate and said it could range from 250 to 7,500. But in the complaint, Mr. Metcalfe and the other plaintiffs claimed it was as many as 200,000 ballots, offering no evidence for how that conclusion was reached.
It is common for absentee ballots to be mailed from other states, as the ballots are meant to be used by college students, members of the military, people who travel for work and others who may be outside their home municipality on Election Day.
Other claims were made by Gregory Stenstrom, a poll watcher in Delaware County whose statement contains an array of speculation, personal issues with election officials and confusion about procedural processes, but no material evidence of any fraud.
In a response filed Tuesday, the Democrats bluntly refuted the request: “There is no claim here. Petitioners have set forth nothing more than a list of random grievances — with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, with administrative decisions made years ago and never challenged, and with the mail-in voting statute that Petitioners themselves helped pass into law.”
The defendants — including Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, both frequent targets of election-related scorn — drew upon the numerous other failed challenges to the election by President Donald Trump and other Republicans in refuting the plaintiffs’ claims.
“Petitioners allege they are all ‘residents and electors within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,’ but none of them suggests how their votes were compromised, corrupted, or not counted,” the filing reads.
Additionally, the Commonwealth Court found that the Republicans met none of the requirements needed to make their challenge, which include the petitions of at least a hundred electors and verification by at least five of the petitioners in the lawsuit.
Mick Stinelli: mstinelli@post-gazette.com; 412-263-1869; and on Twitter: @MickStinelli. Post-Gazette staff writer Julian Routh contributed reporting.
First Published: December 9, 2020, 7:04 p.m.
