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Supreme Court dismisses challenge to Pennsylvania's 2020 election

The Supreme Court Monday tossed out a case challenging a lower court's decision to extend Pennsylvania's mail-in ballot deadline for the November presidential election by three days. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI
The Supreme Court Monday tossed out a case challenging a lower court's decision to extend Pennsylvania's mail-in ballot deadline for the November presidential election by three days. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

April 19 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court dismissed a case Monday over Pennsylvania's high court extending the November election ballot deadline amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republican congressional candidate Jim Bognet and four individual voters argued the state's high court exceeded its authority when it extended the state's mail-in ballot deadline by three days in the November presidential election amid the pandemic. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals held they did not have standing, prompting them to petition the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse that decision.

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The Supreme Court Monday vacated the Third Circuit's judgment and ordered the lower court to dismiss the case as moot.

"Once again, the court's involvement in the 2020 election is going out with a whimper, not a bang," CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck said.

Vladeck added that the court's decision Monday leaves the question over the ballot deadline unanswered.

"By vacating the decision below and ordering the lower court to dismiss the suit as being moot, the justices avoided either tacitly endorsing or rejecting the lower court's analysis, leaving no federal precedent to govern the question of whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was allowed to extend the deadline for receipt for mail-in ballots last fall," Vladeck said.

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