…

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Monday joined nine other Republican attorneys general in a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a ruling by the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court that allowed Pennsylvania elections officials to count late-arriving absentee ballots.

The brief argues the court’s decision to allow the tally of absentee ballots received up to three days after the Nov. 3 election “exacerbated the risk of mail-in ballot fraud by permitting mail-in ballots that are not postmarked or have no legible postmark to be received and counted several days after the election.”

Moody’s participation in the brief quickly received criticism from political opponents. A Tuesday morning tweet by Florida Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, accused Moody of using “public money” to challenge the Presidential election results.

In a statement to The Capitolist, Moody responded, “Florida supports the principle that a state’s legislature, not its courts on the eve of an election, should determine a state’s election laws. It is in Florida’s interest to ensure clarity and finality of future elections.”

According to the brief, Florida, along with Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas, has a strong interest in “preserving the proper roles of state legislatures and state courts in the administration of federal elections, and thus safeguarding the individual liberty of their citizens. Secondly, the states outside Pennsylvania have a strong interest in preventing the effective invalidation of their own voters’ choices through illegal voting in Pennsylvania.”