Fox host thanks former candidate for “keeping up the fight” to get mail-in ballots thrown out

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the November 29, 2020, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Sunday

JEDEDIAH BILA (CO-HOST): Alright well, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court tossing out an election case over Pennsylvania's mail-in ballots. This after a judge deemed it likely to succeed. 

PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): But our next guest who filed the lawsuit says it's not over yet. Pennsylvania GOP congressional candidate Sean Parnell joins us now with the latest.

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HEGSETH: Sean you're right, and your case is anchored in the Constitution, but I know from following your race you certainly don't feel like everything was above board in the way balloting happened as well. Real quick, how quick could it go to the Supreme Court? 

SEAN PARNELL: Well, we're going to file -- we're going to file an emergency motion today to see if we can get it in front of the Supreme Court. Again, we'll see. I don't want to show my hands here on TV, but there are remedies that we're pursuing right now.

HEGSETH: Got it. Sean Parnell, candidate from Pittsburgh's 17th [congressional] district, thanks for keeping up the fight and updating us this morning, we appreciate it.

Contrary to assertions in this segment, Parnell's lawsuit did seek to overturn the election:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dismissed the lawsuit from Congressman Mike Kelly and congressional candidate Sean Parnell to declare universal mail-in voting unconstitutional in the state and deny the votes of the majority of Pennsylvanians who voted by mail in the Nov. 3 election.

The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, threw out the three-day-old order, saying the underlying lawsuit was filed months after the law allowed for challenges to Pennsylvania’s expansive year-old mail-in voting law.

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The week-old lawsuit, led by U.S. Rep. Kelly of Butler, had challenged the state’s mail-in voting law as unconstitutional.

As a remedy, Kelly and the other Republican plaintiffs had sought to either throw out the 2.5 million mail-in ballots submitted under the law — most of them by Democrats — or to wipe out the election results and direct the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature to pick Pennsylvania’s presidential electors.