The Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom on Friday accepted Republicans’ request to once more declare that mail ballots returned with a lacking or incorrect date can’t be counted this election. The Republican Nationwide Committee (RNC) filed an emergency enchantment to make sure that election officers don’t leverage a decrease court docket’s ruling handed down Wednesday discovering such disqualification violates the state structure. That 3-2 ruling involved 69 misdated and undated ballots in a September particular election, the place the end result was not doubtful both approach. However Republicans raised considerations the choice injects new uncertainty within the days resulting in the presidential election, the place probably hundreds of ballots are at stake within the battleground that each campaigns see as a must-win. The court docket’s unsigned order states the decrease ruling “shall not be applied to the November 5, 2024 General Election.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Kevin Dougherty condemned decrease courts for intervening too near an election in current circumstances, saying they “repeatedly have taken the bait” regardless of previous warnings. “To reiterate the point once more: we said what we meant, and we meant what we said. Moving forward, lower courts should think twice — maybe even three times — before granting relief that could arguably be construed as imposing ‘substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,’” Dougherty wrote.
Justice Christine Donohue, joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd, critiqued their colleague, saying there was no must “berate” decrease courts.“In my view, chastising both interested parties for bringing challenges to the application of the Election Code in a completed election and the courts of common pleas and intermediate appellate court for deciding such cases is unwarranted and blind to the recurring nature of election cycles in our Commonwealth,” Donohue wrote in a concurring opinion.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom is a majority Democratic panel.Republicans have fought to stop undated and misdated ballots from being counted in Pennsylvania, contending an accurate date is required underneath state legislation.The Democratic Nationwide Committee (DNC) has argued the requirement is meaningless as a result of mail ballots are time stamped upon their receipt by election officers, a place backed by Pennsylvania’s Republican secretary of state. The Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom’s ruling marks no change in the established order. The court docket beforehand rejected on procedural grounds one other bid to depend such ballots.
However the DNC and the 2 voters who filed the most recent lawsuit warned the difficulty may nonetheless return to the court docket in post-election litigation. They requested the court docket use the most recent automobile to conclusively determine forward of Election Day whether or not the poll disqualification is constitutional, however the justices declined to take action.
