# Would Negating the Votes in PA Flip That State? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 10, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188 "2020-11-10T00:55:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/1 "2020-11-10T00:55:17Z")
If, may God forbid, the Supreme Court decides on a hyper-literalist, hyper-textualist interpretation, overrides the PA Supreme Court, and, ex post facto, takes away all the votes received after election day – does anyone know if that would flip PA? It should seem obvious that this would be a bad decision. For one thing, it would re-instate an unconstitutional law (according to the PA SC.) For another thing, it’s bad democracy: stripping all those votes from the citizenry? Truth told, I’m scared, and my heart is hammering. Anxiety attack… Not fun… Can someone reassure me? (Or confirm my fears?) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/2 "2020-11-10T00:59:27Z")
There aren’t enough of them to make a difference. As per _The Hill_: > [@](#): > > The number of affected ballots is believed to be between 3,000 and 4,000. Election law experts said that even if the justices were to later invalidate them, the only way this would impact the outcome of the race between [President Trump](https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump) and Democratic nominee [Joe Biden](https://thehill.com/people/joe-biden) is if the election were decided by Pennsylvania and the pair were separated in the state by a very slim margin. Biden currently leads in Pennsylvania by about 45,000 votes. Even if every single one of those “late” ballots were for Biden, and they were disallowed, it won’t make a difference. [https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/524900-supreme-court-orders-separate-count-of-late-arriving-pa-ballots](https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/524900-supreme-court-orders-separate-count-of-late-arriving-pa-ballots) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/3 "2020-11-10T01:00:14Z")
I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t even come close. I could be factually wrong but I think the vote totals they’ve been releasing have actually NOT been including any votes received after election day. Anyone who knows for certain should offer clarification but I’m pretty sure I read that on a couple of political analysis blogs. Meanwhile it won’t affect the election outcome even if PA flips. Nevada and Georgia are more than sufficient unto themselves. And Arizona. Trump could overturn PA and overtake Biden in AZ and he’d still lose. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/4 "2020-11-10T01:06:21Z")
Thank you! Thank Ghu! Thank every god in every pantheon… I was seriously hammering myself… (BP 175/100, rate 100.) Thank you, and especial thanks to the great Straight Dope tradition of _facts facts facts facts facts!_ ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/5 "2020-11-10T04:05:40Z")
It’s so nice when we can tell people the thing they’re scared about won’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/6 "2020-11-10T04:19:25Z")
And lest we worry (much) about similar things happening in other states, there seems to be a pattern emerging in the SCOTUS that they will uphold votes that were cast in accordance to the laws that the voters had good reason to believe were in effect at the time they cast their votes. This has led to some decisions favoring Biden and some decisions favoring Trump. So far, they are not being so blatantly one-sided partisan as we all feared they would be. They may make decisions that run counter to the above theory but those would not affect the current election, but may affect future elections. That is what I think I’ve been seeing in some discussions of this stuff in the on-line mainstream media. ETA: There has, however, been some rumbling that they will hold that the state legislature, and ONLY the state legislature, can have anything to say about state election laws, putting any questions or disputes outside the purview of the state courts, even the state Supreme Courts, or even the governor. I’m not aware of any decisions in which that was actually a factor. Only that Kavanaugh seemed to mention the argument in some footnote somewhere, which caused widespread alarm. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-negating-the-votes-in-pa-flip-that-state/925188/7 "2020-11-17T17:58:51Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t even come close. I could be factually wrong but I think the vote totals they’ve been releasing have actually NOT been including any votes received after election day. Anyone who knows for certain should offer clarification but I’m pretty sure I read that on a couple of political analysis blogs. I am sure the Votemaster said that those votes had not yet even been counted. So you can rest easy on that count. The Trumpists are making all sorts of claims that the counting in Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, and Allegheny counties were fraudulent. There was one claim of a firehose worth of evidence for this, but none of it has been produced. Just a bunch of affidavits complaining about practices that were actually required by state law.