On Wednesday, the high court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania rejected an appeal by Republicans on behalf of a county election board, which two voters sued to be allowed to cast provisional ballots after irregularities caused their mail ballots to be rejected, by a slim, 4-3 margin.
via The Hill:
The case arose after Pennsylvania’s primary in April, when county election officials rejected provisional ballots cast by two voters in Butler County, which is located north of Pittsburgh.
The voters did not submit their mail ballots with an inner secrecy envelope, an error commonly known as a “naked ballot.” After being notified, the two Pennsylvanians showed up to their polling locations on the day of the primary in an attempt to still vote.
They sued once the county election board rejected the provisional ballots they cast in person. The RNC and Pennsylvania Republican Party intervened to back the board, while the Pennsylvania Democratic Party intervened to support the voters’ challenge.
The case was heard by a trial court, which stated that the board’s action of rejecting the provisional votes was correct; that, however, was overturned by an appeals court, which ruled that the voters should get a do-over with their provisional ballots. That’s when the RNC and the state GOP appealed the case to the Keystone state’s supreme court.
For the four-Democrat majority decision opinion in the ruling, Justice Christine Donohue wrote
“Absent any other disqualifying irregularities, the provisional ballots were to be counted if there were no other ballots attributable to the Electors. There were none.”
The fifth Democrat jurist and two Republicans shared in the dissent. The Hill notes that the high court’s ruling could be seen as a loss for both the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Pennsylvania Republican Party, although readers may remember that Republicans just notched a win in the state in mid-September over misdated mail-in ballots.
Another positive sign is they’ve also been scoring election integrity victories in recent months across the country, as we’ve written, with high hopes of strong leadership to keep the victories rolling into November–including in my home state of Arizona.
Read related:
BREAKING: Pennsylvania Court Ruling a Massive Election Integrity Win on Mail-In Ballots
Awesome Win: Fed Judge Bars Lib AZ SoS Adrian Fontes’ Disastrous Election Rules, Compares Them to Nukes
Good News! RNC, Team Trump Just Hired a Familiar Name to Lead New Election Integrity Team in Arizona
At the time of this writing, there was no response to The Hill’s request for comment from the Butler Co. election board, the DNC, or the RNC. This is a developing story; RedState will bring you updates as they emerge, or as warranted.
