Supreme Court Rejects Another Attempt to Block Pennsylvania’s Extended Ballot Deadline — At Least, For Now
On Wednesday afternoon, the Supreme Court rejected a second attempt by Pennsylvania Republicans to stop late-arriving ballots from being counted up to three days after Election Day. This means that the deadline for those ballots is almost certainly safe through Nov. 3. But what happens after that is still a bit up in the air. That's because in a statement attached to the order, three of the conservative justices -- Samuel Alito joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch -- wrote that while they thought there was a "strong likelihood" that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision to extend the deadline violates the U.S. Constitution, there wasn't time to decide the issue before the election. (To be clear, this was not a formal dissent, and the conservatives seem to agree with the decision to not expedite the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s most recent nominee, also didn’t participate in the decision-making because she joined the court so recently.)
But Alito also explicitly noted that ballots arriving after 8 p.m. Eastern on Election Day will be segregated so the issue can still be revisited if necessary after the election. That suggests that some of the conservative justices may be contemplating a post-election scenario where they might reconsider Pennsylvania Republicans' request to not count these ballots.