Texas v. Pennsylvania

Texas v. Pennsylvania was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. It claimed that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin violated the Constitution by changing their election procedures. The suit sought to temporarily withhold the certified vote count from these four states prior to the Electoral College vote on December 14, 2020. The Supreme Court issued orders on December 11, declining to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the election held by another state.

About Texas v. Pennsylvania in brief

Summary Texas v. PennsylvaniaTexas v. Pennsylvania was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. It claimed that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin violated the Constitution by changing their election procedures through non-legislative means. The suit sought to temporarily withhold the certified vote count from these four states prior to the Electoral College vote on December 14, 2020. The Supreme Court issued orders on December 11, declining to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the election held by another state. The initial tallies of votes in the election, completed within the week of election day, showed that Joe Biden had won sufficient votes to secure the presidency over incumbent Donald Trump. Trump and the Republican National Convention launched numerous lawsuits against various swing states challenging their vote tallies, particularly in states that had voted for Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election but had turned to Biden in 2020. Most of these cases have been dismissed on procedural grounds or rejected on substantive grounds in the courts, and in so being have not affected the projected Electoral College result. The case was filed on December 8, 2020, directly with the Supreme Court as it holds original jurisdiction over disputes between states. It alleged that electoral processes in the four states were unconstitutional and therefore that it was not clear who won the 2020 election. In particular, it argued that the Constitution requires changes to electoral procedures to be made by state legislatures, and not by state secretaries of state, as it was in this case.

Several states changed their voting laws to make postal voting easier, due to fears that in-person voting would expose people to COVID-19. In Texas, Texas claimed that such alterations violated Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, and that the changes were made by the executive branch of the federal government, not by the state legislatures. In this case, Texas alleged that the defendant states, by changing the election processes, violated three clauses of the constitution: the Equal Protection Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Due process clause. The lawsuit was filed after about 50 lawsuits arising from disputes over the election results had failed in numerous state and federal courts. PolitiFact noted that the forces behind reversing the election had by this point \”lost dozens of election lawsuits. Most of the cases raised by Trump and. the RNC have been dismissal on procedural Grounds or rejected in court. The case would have required five justices to accept it. Whereas a typical case submitted through a writ of certiorari requires only four justices toaccept to be certified by the Supreme. Court, this case would be accepted by a 6–3 majority. It was filed the same day as the \”safe harbor\” threshold, beyond which Congress must accept certified results from states ahead of the Electoral. College’s official vote on Dec. 14,2020, as to how results were received, evaluated, evaluated and how they were to be determined. The incumbent president referred to this case as ‘the big one’