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Levin Makes Case Why SCOTUS Likely To Rule in Trump's Favor Over PA Election Law Changes

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Fox News host Mark Levin made the case for why the U.S. Supreme Court should rule in a favor of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of changes to Pennsylvania’s election law regarding absentee ballots, which would invalidate Democrat Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump in the Keystone State.

On his program “Life, Liberty, and Levin” on Sunday, the conservative firebrand offered two primary grounds to support his argument.

First, the new election law provisions themselves, passed in October 2019 as part of an omnibus bill allowing for universal mail-in voting and early voting, were not enacted in the way required by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Second, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and the state’s Supreme Court went beyond even the language of the new law by removing safeguards such as signature and postmark requirements and allowing ballots to be received after Election Day.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito — who oversees the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Pennsylvania — took notice of the changes and last month and ordered all ballots received after the deadline on Election Day to be kept apart.

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On Sunday, Alito bumped up a deadline to Tuesday for state officials to respond to a case being brought by GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania that the vote-by-mail law changes were unconstitutional and therefore those ballots must be disqualified, Fox News reported.

Levin, who served as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, explained why Kelly’s case is strong.

“Under the constitution of Pennsylvania, if there are to be any election law changes, you have to amend the constitution. Did they amend the constitution? No. What’s required to amend the constitution of Pennsylvania? It’s very complicated,” Levin said, according to a transcript.

“There needs to be a majority vote of both houses of the state legislature, not once but twice. Then there needs to be a respite,” he continued.



Levin then noted the state constitution requires ads announcing the changes to be placed in at least two papers in all the state’s 67 counties.

Then, finally, the citizens of Pennsylvania get to vote on whether they want the amendment, he said.

“It has to be on the ballot. Did that happen? No, it didn’t happen,” Levin said.

Regarding the changes Wolf implemented going beyond the language of the law itself, he pointed out the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania House specifically declined to act on those proposals when the governor pushed them in the weeks before the election.

Wolf’s administration then went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 liberal majority.

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The justices ruled in the governor’s favor, including on the issue of not allowing ballots to be rejected based on signature comparisons, Politico reported.

“They had no legal or constitutional basis for doing any of that,” Levin said. “So they violated Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, which leaves the power to the state legislature to make the election laws.”

Late last month, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough issued a preliminary injunction against the certification of the state’s election based on the arguments presented in Kelly’s case.

Do you believe Wolf's actions were unconstitutional?

“Petitioners appear to have established a likelihood to succeed on the merits because Petitioners have asserted the Constitution does not provide a mechanism for the legislature to allow for expansion of absentee voting without a constitutional amendment,” McCullough wrote in her ruling.

“Since this presents an issue of law which has already been thoroughly briefed by the parties, this Court can state that Petitioners have a likelihood of success on the merits of its Pennsylvania Constitutional claim,” she said.

Rather than allowing the matter to proceed at the Commonwealth Court, Democratic Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to step in, which it did, closing down the case.

Levin believes the U.S. Supreme Court should agree to hear Kelly’s appeal.

“It should take the case up because there’s clearly a federal issue. … It should rule that what the state of Pennsylvania did violates the federal Constitution on a number of grounds and is, in fact, unconstitutional,” he contended, pointing out it has to do with the Electoral College vote of a presidential election.

Levin said the U.S. Supreme Court does not have to fashion a remedy should it determine that Wolf and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unconstitutionally.

It can leave it up to the state legislature and Congress.

Among other options, the Pennsylvania General Assembly could choose to award the state’s 20 electors to Trump (since he was ahead by more than 600,000 votes on election night prior to most mail-in votes being counted) or find the election has been so corrupted that there must be a redo.

Last month, constitutional legal scholar Alan Dershowitz told Fox News that the president has two “winning issues” at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding Pennsylvania, including changing the ballot deadline and the unequal treatment of the curing of mail-in ballots between different counties in the commonwealth.

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Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."
Randy DeSoto is the senior staff writer for The Western Journal. He wrote and was the assistant producer of the documentary film "I Want Your Money" about the perils of Big Government, comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Randy is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths," which addresses how leaders have appealed to beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence at defining moments in our nation's history. He has been published in several political sites and newspapers.

Randy graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a BS in political science and Regent University School of Law with a juris doctorate.
Birthplace
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Nationality
American
Honors/Awards
Graduated dean's list from West Point
Education
United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law
Books Written
We Hold These Truths
Professional Memberships
Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Entertainment, Faith




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