Judge tosses Trump's attempt to stop Pennsylvania vote certification

AP ^ | June 21 2020 | Mark Scolforo

[Dr. Franklin]

Frankly, I think it all depends on SCOTUS now. The Third Circuit could very well rule that the Trump campaign lacks standing to bring the action, so the refusal to permit amending the complaint is moot. I think that is likely. Matt Brann isn’t going to rule differently on the merits if he is required to decide the case again either.

The issue with SCOTUS is that the President said before the election that there could be a problem, and that they needed Justice Barrett confirmed in case there was a problem. So now there are problems everywhere and she has the ethical issue of recussing herself. I don’t think she has a conflict of interest, but she, and Justice Roberts, would prefer that she not have the appearance of something improper. So, SCOTUS is sitting out as long as possible because of the optics. I suspect inside SCOTUS, the justices are having discussions about taking the election cases without the Court appearing political.

The problem is that once an election gets certified, all hell breaks lose trying to decertify it. That leads to states sending two different slates of electors’ votes to Congress, and Congress needing to decide which slate is legitimate, etc. Enjoining the certification solves that problem, and there is no rush since they have until December before there is any deadline at the federal level.