After Supreme Court Order on Pa. Ballots, a Trump Tirade

Justice Alito says ballots received after Election Day must be segregated, but count continues
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2020 8:15 AM CST
After Supreme Court Order on Pa. Ballots, a Trump Tirade
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is seen at the White House in Washington on July 23, 2019.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

As Joe Biden closes in on a win, Pennsylvania remains a key state that could put him over the top. And per a ruling from Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, ballots postmarked by Tuesday but received by 5pm Friday are allowed in the count. But on Friday, in response to a GOP request, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered county election boards in the state to ensure all mail-in ballots received after Election Day be kept separate from ballots received before or on Election Day, per the Hill. Though Alito didn't honor the GOP's request that those post-Election Day ballots not be counted at all, his order leaves open that possibility in a future decision. The Washington Post, however, notes that the segregation order is likely to have minimal impact, as there aren't that many of the post-Election Day ballots, and Pennsylvania officials had been setting them aside to begin with.

Pennsylvania's Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, who'd already ordered the county boards to segregate the post-Election Day ballots, says the tallies we're seeing out of Pennsylvania don't include those ballots. Meanwhile, Trump began tweeting just after 8am Saturday, making claims without evidence that "tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states." Trump also complained about the process for observers of ballot counts (his recent claims on this have been debunked or required clarification), making the unproven assertion that "BAD THINGS HAPPENED INSIDE. BIG CHANGES TOOK PLACE!" That thread of tweets was almost immediately labeled by Twitter as having content that "is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process." (More Election 2020 stories.)

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