Why did Kelly wait so long to file his lawsuit?
After the Nov. 3 presidential election, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th Dist., and others filed suit to try to invalidate more than 2.5 million mail-in ballots. His claim is that Pennsylvania’s universal, no-excuses mail-in voting system, which the Republican-controlled general assembly approved with bipartisan support in 2019, is unconstitutional.
The state Supreme Court dismissed Mr. Kelly’s case, stating that he had waited too long to sue over the mail-in voting law. This law was effective in both the spring primary and the Nov. 3 election i.e. votes had already been allowed under this law. In its order, the state Supreme Court found that by waiting to sue until after mail-in ballots were cast, Mr. Kelly’s suit risked “the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters” who had already gone to the polls.