Pennsylvania Supreme Court Turns Down Trump Campaign's Attempt To Invalidate Certain Ballots Cast Citing Technical Concerns
On Monday, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court declined President Donald Trump's campaign's effort to make sure absentee ballots that didn't have dates or names were not counted. This ruling has paved the way for 10,000 votes to be counted in Allegheny and Philadelphia counties, representing another defeat for the president's legal battle.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected five lawsuits filed by the president's campaign in a bid to invalidate 8,329 ballots cast in the recently concluded presidential election over technical concerns. In the majority, three justices wrote that no allegations of illegality or fraud were found while examining the ballots.
Moreover, the timing of the ruling coincides with multiple counties across the state certifying their results. Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh; Lehigh County, which comprises Allentown; and Lancaster County, certified their results on Monday. Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt told CNN's Kate Bolduan he expects Pennsylvania's largest county to certify its results later in the day.
President-elect Joe Biden is currently ahead of Trump in Keystone State by over 81,000 votes. Joined by two others in the Monday ruling, Justice Christine Donohue rejects the Trump administration's attempt to prevent the counting of certain votes. They concluded that while not including a handwritten date, address, and name on the back of the outer envelope in the voter declaration add up to technical violations of the Election Code, it does not allude to the wholesale disenfranchisement of all Pennsylvanian voters.
While two other justices joined Donohue, other members of the court had different opinions. Expressing a different opinion, Justice David N. Wecht wrote that he supports the counting of technically deficient ballots this year; the absence of a date on the declaration should not be considered a negligible irregularity.
Wecht went on to say that he would treat the sign and date requirement as mandatory in future elections. The absence of either of the item will be sufficient to deem the ballot in question as invalid. He urged the General Assembly to clarify and refine the Election Code in the future, ABC News reported.
Before this ruling, a lower court permitted 8,329 absentee and mail-in ballots to be counted. These ballots arrived in Philadelphia County around 8 p.m. on Election Day but did not have handwritten names, dates, or street addresses.
As if that weren't enough, the court rejected a lower court decision that canceled 2,349 ballots because they didn't have dated declarations—this overturning of a lower court decision erased the Trump campaign's initial wins. The state Supreme Court brought back an earlier ruling that allowed those ballots to be counted.