Washington- The Supreme Court refused Friday to freeze a ruling by Pennsylvania’s highest court that required election officials to count provisional ballots cast by people whose mail-in ballots were invalid because they did not have secret envelopes required.
The judges’ order means election officials in this key battleground state must count provisional ballots submitted on Election Day by voters who returned defective ballots, either because they did not include no secrecy envelopes, either because they had not signed or dated the outer envelope.
It’s unclear how many provisional ballots will be counted as a result of the Supreme Court’s order. In many counties, voters are notified when their absentee ballot is likely to be disqualified and given the option of requesting a new ballot or visiting their polling place on Election Day to cast a provisional vote.
However, the presidential race in battleground Pennsylvania is tied and wins the the state is central to the efforts of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump to secure the electoral votes needed to win.
Republicans, who sought relief from the Supreme Court, had warned that if the Pennsylvania court’s ruling stood, “tens of thousands” of provisional votes could be counted in a state that could decide control of the Senate and the White House. They said that if the justices believed a full stay of the state Supreme Court’s ruling was not warranted, they should order that the provisional ballots at issue be voided and not included in the official vote count while the legal battle plays out.
In the 2020 election, about 1% of returned ballots were rejected because they did not contain a clerk’s envelope, according to an analysis by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania GOP had requested the intervention of the Supreme Court Monday, a little more than a week before Election Day. Millions of voters nationwide have already cast their ballots early, in person or by mail, including in Pennsylvania, where more than 1.5 million voters returned their absentee ballots, according to the Election Lab. University of Florida.
“This case is of paramount public importance, potentially affecting tens of thousands of votes in a state that many believe could be decisive in control of the U.S. Senate or even the 2024 presidential election,” they said. Republican lawyers before the Supreme Court. . “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 April primary election, when two Butler County voters submitted absentee ballots but failed to put 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 the absentee ballot invalid and ineligible for counting.
Because voters returned their ballots without a secrecy envelope, election officials informed them that their votes might not be counted and that they could provisionally vote in person on Election Day, which both voters did. do.
But the county election board did not count those provisional ballots. After learning that the ballots had been rejected, voters challenged the decision in state court and argued that the election commission had acted improperly. The trial court disagreed, holding that the state’s election code prohibits people who submit “timely received” mail-in ballots from having their provisional ballots counted, even if the mail-in ballots are defective.
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 reiterated in its guidance last week that a provisional ballot could be issued when voters return a completed absentee ballot that would be rejected and voters would 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 absentee voting after voting began and so close to Election Day.
But voters’ attorneys said it’s Republicans who are seeking to disrupt Pennsylvania’s election rules by asking the Supreme Court to block dozens of county election boards from counting provisional ballots and “shaping a new provisional statewide ballot segregation scheme” less than a week before. Election day.
They argued that since the Pennsylvania General Assembly expanded mail voting five years ago, most county election boards and state courts have counted provisional ballots cast by voters who had voted by mail and who would be considered invalid.
Citing the RNC’s appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which that court later resolved, attorneys for the voters argued that the GOP is now “asking a federal court to step in and change Pennsylvania’s election laws, such as ‘interpreted by its Supreme Court, the majority’. county boards of elections and the Pennsylvania Department of State.
They said Republicans were asking the Supreme Court to “interfere in state law to revive a legal regime that is less uniform and more burdensome for counties, more confusing for voters and candidates, and more unfair to all.” .
The dispute over provisional ballots in Pennsylvania is one of several election-related disputes in which the Supreme Court has been asked to intervene. On Tuesday, the high court rejected a bid by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to be removed from ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin, two battleground states. The judges Wednesday allowed Virginie to move forward with a program that aims to remove non-citizens from its electoral rolls.
