The Supreme Court allows Pennsylvania to count the disputed provisional ballots and rejects the Republican plea

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency Republican appeal that could have led to thousands of provisional ballots in Pennsylvania not being counted as presidential campaigns battle the final days before the election in the nation’s largest battleground state.

The justices upheld a state Supreme Court ruling that election officials must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected.

The ruling is a victory for voting rights advocates, who had tried to force counties — mainly Republican-controlled counties — to let voters cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if their ballot was rejected due to a garden-variety error. .

Although the Supreme Court’s action was a setback for Republicans, the Republican Party separately claimed victory in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision. That court rejected a last-ditch effort by voting rights advocates to ensure that mail-in ballots without an accurate, handwritten date on the outer envelope would still count in this year’s presidential election.

The rulings are the latest in four years of lawsuits over mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, where every vote really counts in presidential races. Republicans have tried in dozens of lawsuits to give the strictest possible interpretation to the throwing out of ballots, which are cast mainly by Democrats.

Taken together, Friday’s near-simultaneous rulings will mean a heavy focus on helping thousands of people vote provisionally on Election Day if their ballot is rejected — and potentially more lawsuits.

About 9,000 of the more than 1.6 million returned ballots arrived at Pennsylvania election offices Thursday without a secrecy envelope, signature or handwritten date, according to state data.

Pennsylvania is the biggest battleground for this year’s presidential election, with 19 electoral votes, and is expected to play a major role in Republican election decisions. Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

It was decided by tens of thousands of votes in 2016 when Trump won it, and again in 2020 when Democrat Joe Biden won it.

A Pennsylvania voting rights lawyer who helped bring both cases said it is almost certain that a new case over undated ballots will return to the state Supreme Court within days of the presidential election, if it is close.

“It’s almost certain that this will be brought up again after the election, especially if it’s a close election,” Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

In its unsigned two-page order, the state’s highest court stayed a lower court ruling that would have required counties to count the ballots. The Supreme Court said the case will not apply to the presidential election to be decided next week, but left open the possibility that it could decide the case at a later date.

The rulings came as voters had their last chance to apply on Friday ballot by mail in a remote suburb of Philadelphia, while a county on the other side of the state gave voters who had not received their ballot in the mail another chance to get one.

A judge in Erie County, in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, ruled Friday in a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party that about 15,000 people who requested a mail-in ballot but did not receive it could go to the county election office and receive up to were able to get a replacement on Monday. .

In Pennsylvania, the deadline to request a ballot has passed. But the judge’s ruling means the Erie County elections office will be open every day through Monday so voters can go in, cancel the ballot they didn’t receive in the mail and get another ballot.

In Bucks County, a suburb of Philadelphia, a court set a 5 p.m. deadline for voters there to request and receive a ballot after a judge ordered a three-day extension in response to a Trump campaign lawsuit accusing the province of rigging the election. the law by turning voters away from election offices that had done so struggled to meet demand.

The lines outside the county elections office in Doylestown were long all day — snaking down the sidewalk — and the process lasted about two hours Friday afternoon.

Nakesha McGuirk, 44, a Democrat from Bensalem, assessed the line, saying, “I didn’t expect the line to be this long. But I’m going to keep it up.”

McGuirk, a Harris supporter, faces a long commute to work next week and worries about her ability to get to the polls on Election Day. “I thought it would be better to do it early rather than risk not getting home in time to vote,” she said.

Republican voter Patrick Lonieski, a Trump supporter from Buckingham, also found it more convenient to vote Friday in a county he called “critical” to the outcome because of his work schedule.

“I just want to make sure I get my ballot in and it gets counted,” said Lonieski, 62, who voted for the first time with his 18-year-old son.

The line steadily grew smaller as 5 p.m. approached.

One last straggler scrambled to meet the deadline as election workers gleefully counted down the seconds. “Let’s go! Hurry! You can do it!” shouted a bystander. People burst into applause as she walked through the door – just in time.

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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report. Levy reported from Harrisburg.