Ken Starr: Pennsylvania three-day extension to mail-in ballot deadline a 'constitutional travesty'
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling requiring boards of elections in the commonwealth to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day if they were received up to three days later was a "constitutional travesty," former independent counsel Ken Starr told "Life, Liberty & Levin" Sunday.
"The founding generation sitting in Philadelphia undoubtedly thought, 'Well, should we have the state Supreme Court make the determination?' No, we want ... a very democratic with a small 'd' approach," Starr, a Fox News contributor, told host Mark Levin. "We want the legislatures, those closest to the people, the state legislatures, they're the bosses, not the governor.
"And what happened in Pennsylvania over these recent weeks is a constitutional travesty. Governor [Tom] Wolf tries to get his reforms, his vision, as he was entitled to do, through the legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," Starr went on. "He failed. He then goes to the state Supreme Court, which by a divided vote, accepted the substance of what Governor Wolf was doing, and then added thereon nooks and crannies as well."
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On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an emergency order that every county election board in Pennsylvania segregate and secure ballots received after 8 p.m. on Election Day. The order stopped short of ordering the boards to stop counting the ballots, which the Republican Party of Pennsylvania had requested.
Host Mark Levin pointed out to Starr that the votes that Alito ordered separated and secured "may be in question under our federal constitution ... that is, the state Supreme Court may have disenfranchised those voters by violating the federal constitution."
"Exactly right," Starr agreed. "In fact, to count every vote may be a crime ... under federal law. It's definitely a crime under state law, if -- and here's the key word -- illegal.
"It's shameful that Vice President [Joe] Biden's people and the vice president himself are saying 'Count Every Vote' and selling a lot of T-shirts. That is ... an invitation for absolute lawlessness.
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"I know of a situation ... where a recently widowed woman knew how her late husband would vote," Starr went on. "He was deceased, that's a human tragedy. What's a travesty is she cast his vote for him. We [don't] call that absentee ballots. No, we call that an illegal ballot."
The Fox News Decision Desk projected Saturday that Joe Biden had been elected the 46th president of the United States. The Trump campaign has launched legal challenges in five key states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. It has also requested a recount in Wisconsin.