The Republican Party has requested that the US Supreme Court prevent Pennsylvanians from having a second opportunity to vote in the November 5 election if their mail-in ballots are rejected as incomplete. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots are disqualified for failing to include an inner envelope around the ballot for secrecy must be counted. The Republican National Committee and state Republican Party organization have asked the justices to block the state court’s order from taking effect for the 2024 election. The justices have asked for responses to the Republicans’ application by Wednesday.
Pennsylvania is one of the battleground states where polls show a tight race for the White House between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Thousands of votes could be at stake in the naked ballots case. In the 2022 midterm election, 8,250 mail-in ballots were rejected for missing the secrecy envelope.
Pennsylvania law says that provisional ballots can’t be counted if a voter’s absentee or mail-in ballot “is timely received” by a county election board. Provisional ballots are cast in-person when there’s a question about a voter’s eligibility. In a 4-3 decision, the state court held on Oct. 23 that because a “naked” ballot is invalid, there are “no other ballots attributable” to a voter that would fall under the provisional ballot disqualification.
Justice Christine Donohue wrote in the majority opinion that the goal of the law is to prevent double voting, which isn’t possible when a mail-in ballot is tossed out as defective. The Republicans argued that the state law doesn’t include a carve-out for disqualified ballots that are “timely received” when it prohibits the voter from casting a provisional ballot.
The Republicans have asked the US Supreme Court to step in, contending that the state’s high court distorted what the Pennsylvania legislature intended in adopting the provisional ballot rule, in violation of the US Constitution’s elections clause.
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