In an order Friday night, the Supreme Court affirmed a state Supreme Court ruling related to the primary election that anyone with an error on their ballot envelope could cast a provisional ballot.
Justice Alito wrote the following order:
The motion for a stay submitted to Judge ALITO and referred to the court was denied.
Statement by Judge ALITO, joined by Judges THOMAS and GORSUCH, in denying the stay application.
This case concerns a recent decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that adopted a controversial interpretation of an important provision of Pennsylvania election law.
Specifically, the court ruled that provisional ballots must be counted even if the voter previously submitted an invalid mail-in ballot within the time required by law.
Petitioner argues that this interpretation ignores the plain meaning of state election law. 25Pa. See Cons. Statistical §3050(a.4)(5)(ii) (2019), and asserts that the interpretation is so broad that it also violates the Elections and Electors Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1; art. II, §1, cl. 2; Moore v. Harper, 600 US 1, 37 (2023). To prevent county boards of elections from following that interpretation in next state election, the applicants asked us to stay the state Supreme Court’s ruling, or at least order ballot confiscation.
This interpretation may be affected.
Applying the state Supreme Court’s interpretation in this election is a matter of considerable importance, but the outcome they fear even if they agree with the petitioners’ federal constitutional claims (a question on which they express no opinion at this time). The lower court’s ruling concerned just two votes in Pennsylvania’s long-concluded primary. Upholding that ruling does not impose binding obligations on Pennsylvania officials responsible for conducting this year’s elections. And because it is the only state Because the election officials involved in this case are members of the Board of Elections of one small county, we cannot order other boards of elections to quarantine affected ballots.
For these reasons I agree with the order denying the application.
In Pennsylvania, to expand mail-in voting, Republicans argued for rules that would require people to sign and date envelopes and place ballots in internal security envelopes. If a date or signature error invalidates a ballot, the state system will notify the voter of the error, and most counties in the state allow voters to cast provisional ballots that count toward the general election.
erase And the RNC has been suing to stop voters from being allowed to cast provisional ballots and discard their ballots. The Supreme Court sided with Democrats and the state Supreme Court in upholding voters’ ability to cast critical provisional ballots.
Pennsylvania is a close election state, and Trump’s efforts to disenfranchise potentially tens of thousands of voters have failed.
This ruling is a defeat for Trump and a victory for Pennsylvania democracy.
To comment on this story, please join us: Reddit.
