In a ruling Friday evening, the Supreme Court left in place a state Supreme Court ruling related to the primary election that allows people who have errors on their ballot envelopes to cast provisional ballots.
Judge Alito wrote the order:
The application for stay submitted to JUSTICE ALITO and forwarded by him to the Court is rejected.
Statement of JUSTICE ALITO, joined by JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE GORSUCH, regarding the rejection of the application for stay.
This case involves a recent decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that adopted a controversial interpretation of key provisions of Pennsylvania election law.
Specifically, the court ruled that a provisional ballot must be counted even if the voter previously submitted an invalid mail-in ballot within the statutory deadline.
Petitioners contend that this interpretation disregards the clear meaning of the state election law, see 25 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3050(a.4)(5)(ii) (2019) and that the interpretation is so far removed that it also violates the Elections Clause and the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, Cl. 2; Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1, 37 (2023). To prevent county boards of elections from adopting this interpretation in next week's election, petitioners are asking us to suspend the state Supreme Court's ruling or at least order the confiscation of ballots
which may be influenced by this interpretation.
The application of the State Supreme Court's interpretation in the upcoming election is a matter of significant importance, but even if we were to agree with the petitioners' federal constitutional argument (an issue on which I cannot express an opinion at this time), we would be unable to address the consequences they feared not prevent. The lower court ruling affects just two votes in Pennsylvania's long-closed primary. A stay of this ruling would not impose a binding obligation on any of the Pennsylvania officials responsible for administering this year's election. And in this case, because the only state election officials are parties who are members of the board of elections in a small county, we cannot direct other boards of elections to confiscate the affected ballots.
For these reasons, I agree with the decision to reject the application.
To expand mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, Republicans insisted on rules requiring that envelopes be signed and dated and that ballots be placed in an inner security envelope. If a ballot is invalidated due to a date or signature error, the state system notifies the voter of the error and most counties in the state allow the voter to cast a provisional ballot, which is included in the election total.
Trump
and RNC have sued to prohibit voters from voting provisionally and from casting their ballots. The Supreme Court sided with Democrats and the state Supreme Court, which upheld voters' ability to cast provisional, counting votes.
Pennsylvania is a near-election state, and Trump's efforts to disenfranchise potentially tens of thousands of voters have failed.
The ruling is a defeat for Trump and a victory for democracy in Pennsylvania.
To comment on this story, log in with us Reddit.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also White House press secretary and congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor's degree in political science. The focus of his thesis was public policy with an emphasis on social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association
Latest posts from Jason Easley (See all)
Comments are closed.