Pa. Rep. Mike Kelly asks SCOTUS to decertify Pa.’s election returns, report

Days after being dealt a stinging court defeat, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decertify the state’s election returns, according to a published report.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th Distrtict, one of the top boosters of President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, filed the emergency petition on Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. It came the same day that U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said his office had not found substantial evidence of fraud, publicly breaking with the White House.

On Saturday, a unanimous state Supreme Court rejected the claim filed by Kelly and Trump’s other GOP allies, writing that the plaintiffs had “failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted.”

Another of the plaintiffs in the case, former GOP congressional hopeful Sean Parnell, praised the mail-in balloting law earlier this year.

On Friday, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia has denied latest attempt by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign to challenge election results in Pennsylvania.

Friday’s ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirms last week’s decision by a federal judge in Williamsport to reject the Trump campaign’s bid to stop or reverse the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, the New York Times reported.

Pennsylvania’s election results were certified by Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday.

Trump, who lost Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes, has refused to concede that he lost the Nov. 3 general election to President-elect Joe Biden. He has vowed to appeal the appellate court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.