COVID-Related Election Litigation Tracker

Case Details

This database consolidates and tracks litigation concerning the effect of the pandemic on election law. The purpose of this tool is to provide an interactive list of relevant cases that can be searched by issue, court, status, and jurisdiction.

Case Details

 

Kelly v. Pennsylvania

Closed

Kelly v. Pennsylvania, No. 620 MD 2020

  Case Summary Plaintiffs, Republican representatives to state congress, sought to declare Act 77, a Pennsylvania statute from 2019 that contains a no-excuse mail-in voting provision, unconstitutional. Plaintiffs requested an injunction against certifying the state's election results.
Filed 11/21/2020
State Pennsylvania
Type of Court State
Status Closed
Last Updated 05/13/2021
Issue Tag(s) Authority To Act (State Separation of Powers)
Complaint(s) 11/21/2020: Complaint filed.
Dispositive Ruling(s) 11/25/2020: Order/Ruling, The court, without elaboration, held that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is enjoined from certifying any remaining election results.

Kelly v. Pennsylvania, No. No. 68 MAP 2020 (Penn. Sup. Ct.)

  Case Summary Respondents, the Secretary of State and other state officials, appeal to the state Supreme Court the injunction against perfecting the results certification.
Filed 11/25/2020
State Pennsylvania
Type of Court State
Status Closed ()
Last Updated 11/29/2020
Issue Tag(s) Authority To Act (State Separation of Powers)
Dispositive Ruling(s) 11/25/2020: Appellant Brief
11/28/2020: Order/Ruling, In a per curiam decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated the Commonwealth Court's preliminary injunction and dismissed the case with prejudice. The court held that a dismissal was warranted "based upon Petitioners’ failure to file their facial constitutional challenge in a timely manner," since the Campaign filed the suit more than a year after the enactment of Act 77, after a general election in which millions of voters had cast mail-in votes.

Kelly v. Pennsylvania, No. 20A98 / 20-810 (Sup. Ct.)

  Case Summary Emergency application for injunction submitted to Justice Alito.
Filed 12/03/2020
State Pennsylvania
Type of Court Federal
Circuit US Supreme Court
Status Closed ()
Last Updated 01/12/2021
Issue Tag(s) Authority To Act (State Separation of Powers)
Dispositive Ruling(s) 12/03/2020: Appellant Brief
12/08/2020: Order/Ruling, The Supreme Court, with no dissents, declined to grant the injunctive relief, requested by Rep. Kelly, to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its election results.
12/11/2020: Appellant Brief, Petition for cert.
01/11/2021: Order/Ruling, The Court denied petitioner's motion to expedite consideration.
02/22/2021: Order/Ruling, Cert denied.
Creative Commons License  Covid-Related Election Litigation Tracker by the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.