Financial Incentives Behind Kelly v. Commonwealth – Pennsylvania Supreme Court Dismissal (PA)

[Reasonable Inference – As to investigative need for financial relationship audit] In Kelly v. Commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a facial constitutional challenge to Act 77 of 2019 – the statute authorizing universal no-excuse mail-in voting – on the doctrine of laches, ruling that plaintiffs had waited too long after the law’s passage to bring the challenge. The legal significance of this dismissal in the context of the bribery subtopic is this: Act 77 was the legal foundation upon which 2.48 million mail-in ballots were cast in Pennsylvania’s 2020 general election. A ruling that Act 77 violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s requirement that no-excuse absentee voting be authorized by constitutional amendment would have required re-examination of those results. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s laches dismissal foreclosed that constitutional examination permanently without ever reaching the merits. Simultaneously, the court dismissed after the election was certified – meaning the “laches” clock ran while the election was conducted under the challenged statute. The timing – post-certification laches dismissal of a constitutional challenge to the legal foundation of 2.48 million ballots – is, in the context of this investigation, a finding that warrants examination of whether any financial relationship existed between CTCL/Democratic Party-affiliated organizations and any member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. No such relationship is presently documented; the finding is presented as an investigative predicate requiring financial disclosure audit.