The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state court ruling allowing certain provisional ballots to be counted in a major setback for the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee just four days before the election.
The Republican National Committee and state Republicans last week asked for a temporary stay of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to count voters whose provisional ballots were incorrectly filled out or lacked internal “secrecy,” joining the nation. An emergency appeal was filed with the Supreme Court. ” envelope.
Republican lawyers asked the Supreme Court to grant a complete stay of the state's decision, writing in a final brief filed Thursday night that such an order would subject the state to “many forms of reversal. It stated that this would “prevent” unnecessary damage.
At a minimum, the court was asked to grant a “segregation order,” which would allow ballots to be kept separate and counted separately.
“The actual provisional ballot contains no identifying information, only the vote,” Republican lawyers wrote. “Once the ballots are separated from the outer envelope, there is no way to retroactively know which ballots were illegally cast. In other words, once the scrambled eggs are scrambled, there is no way to unscramble them. .”
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A person walks past a Montgomery County voter services van on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
At issue is a lower court ruling in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in which the local election board disqualified provisional ballots cast by two residents in the 2024 primary election. The pair, along with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, filed a lawsuit seeking to have the votes counted, which was ultimately granted by the state's Commonwealth Court and upheld by a 4-3 Pennsylvania Supreme Court majority last week.
In its ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted that provisional ballots can only be counted after an individual's eligibility to vote and rejection of a mail-in ballot is confirmed.
State Supreme Court Justice Christine Donahue wrote in the majority opinion that “it is a statutory right to count provisional ballots when an elector's mail-in ballot is invalidated by failure to use a secrecy envelope.” He added that the rules in question were “intended to be lenient.” Voters may be disenfranchised. ”
In a response to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, opponents argued that the Republican plaintiffs had neglected the history of important cases in the state. Mainly, it's been six years since Pennsylvania's state Legislature amended voting laws to allow mail-in voting in 2019. ” Most county election boards and most Pennsylvania courts considering the issue count provisional ballots submitted by voters who made disqualifying mistakes attempting to complete their mail-in ballots. ”
In fact, Butler County was one of the few counties that refused to count provisional ballots that lacked a secrecy envelope, until it became the subject of a lawsuit by two plaintiffs whose votes were not counted earlier this year.
“The petitioners have advanced different interpretations of state law and have asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to take this case and issue a decision before the 2024 general election,” they wrote. “Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled to do just that. Just because the RNC doesn't like the results is no reason for our court to intervene and disrupt the status quo on the eve of an election.”
Republican plaintiffs objected to this. Joining the state's Republican Party in the lawsuit, Republican lawyers called the case “one of the most publically significant, with many predicting it would be decisive for control of the U.S. Senate and even the House of Representatives.” “This could potentially affect tens of thousands of votes in states with a large number of states.” 2024 presidential election. ”
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Supporters of former President Donald Trump attend a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Swensen of The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The appeal comes as Republicans have filed nearly 100 election-related court challenges in recent weeks, with legal challenges aimed at preventing absentee and mail-in voting fraud. It is claimed that. (In return, Democrats are using the Republican lawsuit as a way to disenfranchise voters and position themselves as a party that supports free and fair elections.)
Many of the lawsuits are filed in one of seven battleground states considered crucial to which candidate wins the presidency.
Republicans' decision to join a lawsuit over provisional ballots in Pennsylvania late in the campaign was likely a strategic move, analysts said. It's a “placeholder” of sorts that allows it to cite existing legal challenges in battleground states. They can point out that they are asking the courts to take action after the election.
Andrew McCarthy, former assistant attorney general for the Southern District of New York, said it is “absolutely” easier to get the court to intervene after the election if the plaintiffs have already filed a legal challenge. said Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant attorney general for the district. In an interview.
In those cases, he said, “you can at least look[the judge]in the eye and say, 'Look.' I'm not asking them to change the election results. I'm asking them to address the rules. 'I've tried to do it before,' McCarthy said.
This is especially important in Pennsylvania, a battleground state where the most electoral votes will be at stake in 2024.
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A voter fills out a ballot on Election Day in Columbus, Ohio, November 7, 2023. Ohio residents voted on November 7, 2023 to enshrine the right to abortion in the Republican-run state constitution, US media predicted. He will usher in an issue that is likely to dominate next year's presidential election. (Getty Images)
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It's unclear how many Pennsylvania residents will be affected by the provisional voting ruling, and the Republican Party did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment.
Estimates are vague at best. A 2021 study conducted by the MIT Election Data Science Lab estimated that about 1.1% of mail-in ballots went uncounted due to missing secrecy envelopes. Pennsylvania's 2024 mail-in voting numbers have so far been lower than in 2020, when many people relied on that process due to COVID-19 precautions.
New York University law professor Richard Pildes recently estimated that the case could affect between 400 and 4,000 ballots in the state, but his “back-of-the-napkin” calculations focused only on bare ballots and not on other ballots sent with incomplete information. .
Amid the close race, a recent spate of lawsuits has led some parties to believe that lawsuits could disenfranchise potential voters, prevent supporters of either candidate from participating in the election, or cast doubt on the election results. I'm worried that they might plant it.
But analysts told Fox News they don't believe these lawsuits will have a long-term impact on the 2024 election, despite additional scrutiny and media coverage.
“I don't think any pre-election challenges have had a significant impact in the five presidential elections that I've covered,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. .
“I think there will be a lot of litigation, but I would be surprised if there were significant litigation,” Turley said.
Get the latest on the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more with Fox News Digital's Election Hub.
