Supreme Court orders separating late-arriving Pennsylvania ballots

The federal Supreme Court has ordered Pennsylvania to keep the postal ballots that arrived after election day separately but did not agree to the Republican Party request to stop the votecounting in the state where Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden has overtaken President Donald TrumpJustice Samuel Alito issued the order Friday evening on a request for an emergency order filed by the Republican Party It gives room for the court to decide on a pending case over the legality of a statelevel court order extending the deadline for accepting postal ballots to FridayThe Supreme Court was split evenly four votes for each side on the case filed last month by the Republican Party to invalidate the state court ruling and throw out the votes that arrived after election day When the court takes up the case again the newlyappointed justice Amy Coney Barrett could tilt the balanceIf Biden wins Pennsylvania where he was leading on Friday by over 13000 votes he will have more than the 270 electoral votes to win the presidency Rather than the popular votes the votes in the electoral college of state representatives determine who will be presidentThe Republican Party acknowledged in its Supreme Court filing that the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States In a separate case in a state court has ordered election officials on Friday to stop counting some provisional votes cast on election dayThe order applies to the socalled provisional ballots which some voters were allowed to cast to correct errors in postal ballots that they had already sent in Ruling on cases filed by Republican Party members the court said that such ballots should be kept separately pending a decision but rejected demands that they should be rejected outrightPennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said on Thursday that the latearriving votes were being kept separately but may be counted Trump claimed on Thursday that he would have won but for the illegal votes referring to the postal votes arriving after the polls closedThe Supreme Court has mostly deferred to state courts on election matter because the constitution puts the responsibility for holding elections on the state legislaturesThe Republicans may be counting on a narrow reading of the constitutional provision and could argue that the federal court has jurisdiction because the extension was granted by a state court and not by the legislature as mentioned in the constitutionBecause of the Covid19 pandemic there has been greater use of postal ballots with some states like California and New Jersey sending them to all registered votersSome states have extended the deadlines for receiving postal ballots because the large volume and post office delays Trump has said that the wide use postal ballots has led to abuse On Thursday he accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election by using the postal ballotsIf you count the illegal votes they can try to steal the election from us If you count the votes that came in late were looking at them very strongly he said His claim was criticised by most of the media and politicians in his party as undermining peoples trust in electionsBiden said Each ballot must be counted and thats what is going on now And thats how it should be Democracy is sometimes messy so sometimes it requires a little patienceWhile Trump was unable to win most of the cases he has filed in state courts there was a notable victory where a Pennsylvania court ordered election officials to allow Republican Party observers to be stationed within six feet of the counting tables to watch the processOfficials there had stationed them far away citing danger from the coronavirus and the observers complained that they could not clearly see the ballotsKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest newsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever