Kelly v. Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's Act 77, passed in 2019, allowed for all voters to use mail-in ballots. Several Republican officials (petitioners) filed this lawsuit in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, its General Assembly, it's Governor, and its Secretary of State (respondents) who all have roles conducting its elections. Petitioners allege that the Pennsylvania legislative and executive branches knew Act 77 violated the Pennsylvania Constitution and they passed and implemented it anyway. Petitioners called for Act 77 to be struck down and a court order to block the election results from being certified.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a brief claiming that petitioners "misread Article VII, § 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution—which requires that certain groups be allowed to absentee vote—to prohibit mail voting for everyone else.", and therefore Act 77 was perfectly valid. Furthermore, DNC argues that the election could no longer be blocked since "All 67 counties have certified their results, the Secretary of State has performed her statutory duties of tabulation, and just this morning Governor Wolf signed a Certificate of Ascertainment, which has been submitted to the Archivist of the United States. There is, simply, nothing to enjoin." DNC further claims "There is no doubt that the public would be tremendously disserved—and have their faith in democratic institutions shaken—were the Court to grant the requested relief."

Judge Patricia McCullough, on Nov 25th, issued an order that acknowledged that the election results were pretty well concluded already, but ordered any finalization of the election results that hadn't already occurred to be stopped until after the evidentiary hearing, which she set for 11:30 am on Nov 27th. Keep in mind that this is an injunction that may not actually be blocking any actual election activity, and may be only hypothetical in its consequences.

This resulted in a flurry of appeals. Respondents filed an immediate appeal, which delayed the evidentiary hearing. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court (PASC) vacated the injunction on Nov 28th, a day after it would have expired anyway if they'd held the evidentiary hearing. On Dec 2nd, petitioners requested that PASC allow the pause to continue while they appealed to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS). On Dec 3rd, PASC denied that request. Petitioners immediately asked the SCOTUS to block any remaining election activity.

Ten parties came from all around to give their opinions to SCOTUS about the case; think tanks, the Tea Party, Republicans, Democrats, state and federal all made their opinions known. Dec 8, 2020, SCOTUS denied the request for an injunction. When ncRp filed an appeal on the rest of the case, SCOTUS denied that, too.