HARRISBURG — Residents of six Pennsylvania state House districts that are not currently represented because their lawmakers were elected to other offices want the state Supreme Court to force special elections to be held alongside the April 24 primary.

Attorney Kevin Greenberg said Tuesday that the high court gave House Speaker Sam Smith and Secretary of State Carol Aichele until today to file any answers to his lawsuit. Greenberg, who represents residents of the six districts, calls Smith’s failure to set the elections a “dereliction of duty.”

Greenberg wants the court to act by Friday, which he said would barely allow enough time to hold the contests in late April.

“The state law is pretty clear — you need 60 days to make a special election happen,” Greenberg said. “Sixty days before the primary is Friday.”

The lawsuit says both the state and national constitutions guarantee people the right to representation in the General Assembly. An estimated 360,000 people live in the six districts — one district each in Allegheny, Lehigh and Montgomery counties and three in Philadelphia County.

“Depriving hundreds of thousands of citizens of representation in the House not only would be unconstitutional, it would be patently unreasonable,” the lawsuit said. “Forcing taxpayers to pay substantial sums for separate special elections also would be unreasonable.”

The suit asks the court to order Smith to issue a “writ of elections” and to direct Aichele to conduct the elections on primary day.

Smith said he would respond to the lawsuit by today’s deadline and would argue that the Supreme Court should dismiss the case because it properly belongs in Commonwealth Court. A spokesman for Aichele said the State Department was aware of the lawsuit, but had no comment other than that it plans to file by today.

Smith spokesman Steve Miskin said earlier Tuesday that the House speaker is powerless to act until the Legislative Reapportionment Commission passes a legal redistricting plan and the Supreme Court approves it.