U.S. Supreme Court rejects GOP effort to block provisional ballots for Pennsylvanians who mess with mail-in voting

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously rejected a Republican request to ban Pennsylvania voters who sent faulty ballots by mail from casting provisional ballots at the polls on Election Day; This decision was seen as a victory for Democrats in the battleground state.

But three of the court’s Republican justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — who rejected a last-minute objection from the Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania GOP, called the issue “a matter of considerable importance.” and appeared to leave the door open to future lawsuits after the election.

At issue was a 4-3 decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week that allowed voters whose mail ballots were rejected because of procedural errors, such as missing dates or failure to use a required security envelope, to continue voting at the polls.

The case arose out of Butler County, which had a policy of rejecting provisional ballots. It was part of a larger series of cases shaping which votes were counted in Pennsylvania elections.

Separately Friday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Lower court blocks decision This has added confusion to the debate over whether election officials should count undated mail ballots. Instead, he doubled down on an earlier decision that they should not decide on this issue at least this year.

Tens of thousands of votes are rejected every election due to such voter errors. And in a state like Pennsylvania, where this year’s presidential race is likely to end with an incredibly slim margin, the fate of voters’ ability to cast provisional ballots could ultimately matter if they make a mistake.

Democrats are much more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.

In their objection to the Butler County case, Republicans accused the state’s highest court of rewriting election law. They urged U.S. Supreme Court justices to set aside provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail ballots were previously rejected until more cases are resolved.

Democrats and voting rights groups argued that suspending the order would only cause confusion, create problems for election administrators and, worse, could disenfranchise thousands of otherwise eligible voters.

Although U.S. Supreme Court justices ultimately ruled that the state court decision stands, Alito and his Republican colleagues have expressed a willingness to weigh in on the issue in the future. But they described the current case as an inappropriate vehicle for this discussion.

“Since the only state election officials involved in this case are election board members in a small county, we cannot order other boards of elections to seize affected ballots,” they wrote.

In a statement following the decision, RNC spokeswoman Claire Zunk praised the party’s victories in other cases in Pennsylvania Including a resolution forcing Bucks County to extend optional mail-in voting by three days.

“While we are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision, we had three major victories for election integrity in Pennsylvania this week,” he said.

But Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which has advocated for the inclusion of provisional ballots, hailed it as a win for voting rights.

“A small error unrelated to a person’s eligibility to vote should never interfere with the counting of ballots, and provisional ballots are a decades-old security measure for voters, a backup,” he said. “We are grateful that the RNC’s argument failed and voters were able to rely on provisional ballots as a way to ensure their votes were valid.”