Supreme Court won't block Pennsylvania mail-in ballot extension

Catherine Garcia, The Week US's avatar
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A man drops off his ballot in Philadelphia.
(Image credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court on Monday night said Pennsylvania election officials will be allowed to count mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day, rejecting a Republican request to block a Pennsylvania state court ruling granting the extension.

The court was tied 4-4, The Washington Post reports, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh — the court's most conservative justices – saying they would have issued a stay on the ruling, which required five votes.

Pennsylvania is a battleground state that President Trump narrowly won in 2016 — he beat Hillary Clinton there by just 44,000 votes.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.