Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Wednesday shot down threats by President Donald Trump to involve the Supreme Court in the state’s ballot-counting process, telling ABC News that legal issues have largely been settled and that Trump “doesn’t count these votes.”
Trump early Wednesday morning promised to ask the high court to intervene in the presidential election, telling supporters, “we want all voting to stop” in Pennsylvania, which has counted 84 percent of all votes.
Trump currently leads Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, 52.8 percent to 46.1 percent, but Pennsylvania still has to count about 50 percent of mail-in ballots and has until Nov. 6 to do so following a U.S. Supreme Court decision last month that ruled 4-4 to keep a lower court decision in place that allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted for another three days.
“We’ve been saying for months we’re going to secure, protect and count every vote. Clerks from our communities are making sure that these ballots are counted. There’s still a lot of votes left, it’s just way too early in the process,” Shapiro told George Stephanopoulos during an appearance on “Good Morning America.”
“The bottom line is we’re going to make sure here in Pennsylvania that we respect the will of the people. We’re going to get an accurate count. It’s the law.”
When Stephanopoulos asked about Trump’s threats, Shapiro answered: “It doesn’t work that way, George. The president doesn’t count these votes. The clerks in our communities count these votes. These legal issues have largely been settled and now it is time to count these votes and make sure that the will of the people is heard so we’re not going to let anything interfere with that process. We just need to have a little bit more patience and we have to make sure we get this right.”
The matter could still find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, especially if those ballots could tip the outcome in the battleground state. The legal issue is whether the extension ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, relying on voter protections in the Pennsylvania constitution, violated the U.S. Constitution. The argument advanced by Republicans is that the Constitution gives state legislatures — not state courts — the power to decide how electoral votes are awarded, including whether absentee ballots received after Election Day can be counted.
Shapiro said the legal issue has already been settled.
“The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania looked at that question and determined that ballots that were postmarked by election day and received up until Friday at 5 p.m. were valid and could be counted,” he said.
“On two separate occasions, petitioners asked the United States Supreme Court to step in and overturn that, or stop that, invalidate it, and on two separate occasions they didn’t do that. There’s a legal principle known as the Purcell principle which says that matters of state election law should be left to the states and federal courts shouldn’t meddle in that. This should remain with the states and the state says these ballots should be counted and counties are full steam ahead.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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