Pennsylvania Republicans said they request an emergency stay from the Supreme Court to roll back the deadline to submit mail ballots, The Hill reports.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed ballots postmarked by November 3 to be counted even if they arrive three days after the election.
The court also expanded drop boxes in the state and barred Republicans from installing partisan “poll watchers” at polling places in counties where they do not live.
Republicans said they will ask a federal court to rule the drop box and poll watcher rulings unconstitutional while seeking an emergency stay from the Supreme Court.
The court currently has a 5-3 conservative majority after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week.
GOP warns of illegal votes:
"The court's judgment ... creates a serious likelihood that Pennsylvania's imminent general election will be tainted by votes that were illegally cast or mailed after Election Day," state Republican leaders said in a filing to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
“The Elections Clause of the United States Constitution vests the authority to regulate the times, places, and manner, of federal elections to Pennsylvania's General Assembly, subject only to alteration by Congress, not this Court,” the filing said.
"Such last-minute changes by court order can engender widespread 'voter confusion,' erode public 'confidence in the integrity of our electoral process,' and create an 'incentive to remain away from the polls'," the filing added.
Appeal not heading to full SCOTUS just yet:
The appeal would go to conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. But the full court can decide to weigh in on the matter.
"This could be a big first test for the post-RBG Supreme Court and where it will stand on election issues," Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Irvine, told The Hill. "There's little reason to believe that the conservative-liberal divide will disappear with Justice Ginsburg's death."
