Three election-related lawsuits with local ties were listed to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in a closed-door session Friday.

“Every Friday, they have a number of cases that get talked about during the conference,” said Butler attorney Thomas King III, who had a hand in three cases listed Friday. “They could hear none of these (three) cases, or they could hear all of them.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued an order acknowledging which cases they would select, although it was not immediately available. Another order is expected to come Monday that will either remove cases or put them back in the queue for another conference session.

Of the three cases, one was filed by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, along with multiple other Republican colleagues. For that case, King filed an amicus brief in support of Kelly's case on behalf of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.

Kelly's lawsuit, which also included multiple other Republicans, claims the Pennsylvania mail-in voting law is unconstitutional.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court's online system, Kelly's lawsuit was listed as one of 492 “writs of certiorari” available for consideration during the justices' conference session.

Writs of certiorari are petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, and the justices use conferences to weigh the information in those cases.

Kelly's lawsuit also was one of 462 to have the status of “distributed,” but it was not one of the 89 cases listed to have a response filed.

King said he believes the three election-related cases have a chance to be picked by the justices, especially since flared tempers over the 2020 election have cooled off.

“It's almost impossible to predict. I'm optimistic that at least one of these cases is going to get heard,” King said. “I don't know which one it will be.”

King said he felt the case that had the strongest chance is Republican Party of Pennsylvania vs. Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid. The case questions the legality of the three-day extensions afforded to gathering votes submitted by mail.

The case has been listed in five consecutive conference sessions, including Friday's.

“A lot of people think the Republican Party case against the three-day extension is going to be the one that gets heard,” King said. “It's been to conference three times, which is really unusual.”

King also wrote an amici curiae brief on behalf of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania for a third lawsuit, Donald J. Trump for President vs. Degraffenreid, who took the place of former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar in both cases.

The third case attempts to prevent the certification of Pennsylvania's election results, and it is the one King believes is least likely to succeed.