On April 19, 2021, more than five months after the November 3, 2020 election, the Supreme Court declined to hear the outstanding case brought by former Republican congressional candidate Jim Bognet, dismissing it without comment.
Judge Stephanos Bibas released a sharply-worded legal opinion on November 27, which stated: "Charges of unfairness are serious.
in regard to the allegation that the "...District Court abused its discretion in not letting the Campaign amend its complaint a second time."
Dispositive Ruling November 13, 2020, petition was denied and the Montgomery County Board of Elections was ordered to count the 592 ballots.
The Trump campaign appealed to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court and the decision was reversed on the grounds that all poll watchers "be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing."
Ct.) Plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and an application for injunctive relief was filed to Justice Alito.
Barnett also claimed that the federal equal protection clause was violated because only certain voters were allowed the chance to cure.
[4][5] The Ohio-based Porter Wright Morris & Arthur law firm that represented the Trump campaign withdrew from the case on November 13,[46] and Linda A. Kerns, a Republican attorney also representing the Trump campaign, asked the judge for permission to withdraw from the case on November 16.
[50] Fellow Trump lawyer Linda Kerns also agreed that this lawsuit was not based on "allegations of fraud or misconduct".
[17] Judge Matthew W. Brann dismissed the case with prejudice on November 21, citing "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations", noting that "[i]n the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state ... [o]ur people, laws and institutions demand more".
[48][51][52] He likened the Trump team argument to "Frankenstein's Monster", and characterized the requested remedy to disqualify nearly seven million votes as "unhinged from the underlying right being asserted".
[54][55][56] In their revised brief, the campaign asked that the election be decertified and they be permitted to take a sample consisting of 1.5 million mail ballots to determine how many were defective, and deduct those votes from Biden's total.
The panel stated that the Trump campaign was challenging far fewer ballots than Biden's margin of victory, and "it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters.
[60] Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis reacted to the verdict by condemning the "activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania".
The plaintiffs appealed the decision of the board to count over 2,200 ballots that lacked a date or voter address, or were not sealed with secrecy sleeves, claiming the votes are invalid.
[15][61] The lawyers for the Trump campaign have signed an agreement that they "do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any fraud in connection with the challenged ballots.
"[17] They also declared that they were not alleging votes from dead people, "misconduct", or "impropriety" related to those ballots, and had no evidence of such happenings.
The campaign argued for the ballots to be disqualified, but the judge ruled the instructions provided to voters were consistent with election law.
No ballots were at issue, and the case was settled upon mutual party agreement that Republicans and Democrats could have each have up to 60 poll watchers present to observe vote counting.
On appeal, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania sided with the campaign and ordered that poll observers be allowed to watch from a distance of 6 feet (1.8 m).
[15][18][71][78][79] The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled 5–2 on November 17 against the Trump campaign, saying Pennsylvania law requires only that observers must be allowed in the room where ballots are counted but does not set a minimum distance between them and the counting tables; local county officials are left to decide.
"[83] Having issued the press release (without updating the certified results on the State website), the defendants sought to moot the case.
Kelly appealed to the US Supreme Court, and on December 3, 2020, Justice Samuel Alito set a deadline of December 9, one day after the safe-harbor date for Pennsylvania officials to respond to the request to throw out the state's mail-in voting results, or possibly even the entire election.
In complying with the change, the Commonwealth's attorneys stated:"Petitioners [Kelly and others] ask this Court to undertake one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power in the history of the Republic.
The loss of public trust in our constitutional order resulting from the exercise of this kind of judicial power would be incalculable.
[94][95] On November 10, 2020, four voters sued to block votes from being counted in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware and Allegheny counties.
The plaintiffs claimed the state violated the Equal Protection Clause by allowing counties to have varying practices for mail-in ballots.
On November 18, 2020, the state's Court of Common Pleas denied the plaintiffs request, ordering the votes to be counted.