Washington- The Republican National Committee asked the Supreme Court Monday to stay a state high court ruling that says election officials must count provisional ballots cast by a voter whose absentee ballot was rejected because it was returned without a secrecy envelope.
The emergency relief request requested by Republicans is the second relating to the 2024 election to be filed Monday with the Supreme Court. Earlier today, Virginia officials asked the High Court to allow it to move forward by removing approximately 1,600 suspected non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls.
The two requests for Intervention of the Supreme Court come just over a week before Election Day and as millions of voters across the country have already cast their ballots early, either in person or by mail. In Pennsylvania, more than 2 million mail-in ballots were requested and about 1.4 million were returned, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.
Pennsylvania is a crucial state that could decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins the White House. Republicans warned that if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision was not changed, “tens of thousands” of provisional votes could be counted. During the 2020 election, when many states made it easier to vote by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 1% of ballots returned in Pennsylvania were rejected because they did not have a secret envelope, according to an MIT Election analysis. Data and Science Lab.
Republicans said if judges determine a full stay is not warranted, they should order that provisional ballots cast by voters whose absentee ballots were defective be voided and that if they are counted, they should be counted separately and not included in the official vote count. the legal battle is playing out.
“This case is of paramount public importance, potentially affecting tens of thousands of votes in a state that many believe could be decisive for control of the United States Senate or even the 2024 presidential election,” they wrote Republican lawyers. “Whether this crucial election will be conducted according to the rules set by the General Assembly or according to the whims of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is an important constitutional question that deserves the immediate attention of this court.”
The Pennsylvania case occurred after the state’s primary election in April, when two Butler County voters submitted absentee ballots but failed to place them in secrecy envelopes. The state also requires voters to sign and date mailing envelopes containing their ballots. Failure to comply with these requirements renders voting by mail invalid.
Because voters returned their ballots without a secrecy envelope, they were informed by the Butler County Board of Elections that their votes might not be counted and were told they could vote provisionally during in-person voting, and both voters did.
But the county election board did not count those provisional ballots. After learning they had been rejected, voters filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing the board was wrong to reject their ballots. The trial court disagreed, finding that the state election code prohibits people who submit “timely received” absentee ballots from having their provisional ballots counted. A voter’s error in returning an absentee ballot was not considered an acceptable reason to count a provisional ballot.
But voters prevailed before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled 4-3 that boards of elections must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected for lack of secret envelopes.
While the dispute involves voters in Butler County, the Pennsylvania Department of State issued guidance last week stating that a provisional ballot can be issued when voters return a completed mail-in ballot that would be rejected and that voters believe they are eligible to vote.
Republicans urged the Supreme Court to stay the ruling by Pennsylvania’s highest court, warning that if it remains in effect, county boards “will be forced to ignore the election code’s clear mandate and count provisional ballots filed on Election Day by those who submitted defective absentee ballots.” “.
They also argued that the state Supreme Court was wrong to change the rules regarding mail-in voting after it began and so close to Election Day.
