Republicans in the Keystone State filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court just days before the election regarding the state’s processing of provisional ballots.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state court ruling that allowed for the counting of certain provisional ballots, in a major setback for the state GOP and Republican National Committee just four days before the election.
The Republican National Committee and the state GOP filed an emergency appeal to the nation’s top court last week seeking to temporarily halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to count voters whose provisional ballots had been incorrectly filled out or were missing an inner “secrecy” envelope.
Attorneys for the Republican Party urged the Supreme Court to grant a full stay of the state’s decision, writing in a final reply brief submitted Thursday evening that such an order would “prevent multiple forms” of “irreparable harm” to the state.
At a minimum, the court was urged to grant a “segregation order” to allow the ballots to be set aside and counted separately.
“The actual provisional ballots contain no identifying information, only a vote”, the GOP’s lawyers wrote. “Once ballots are separated from their outer envelopes, there is no way to retroactively figure out which ballots were illegally cast. In other words, once the egg is scrambled, it cannot be unscrambled.”
At issue is a lower court ruling in Butler County, Pa., where a local election board had disqualified provisional ballots cast by two residents in the 2024 primary election. That duo joined the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in a lawsuit that sought to have their votes counted, which ultimately was the outcome granted by a state Commonwealth Court and upheld last week by a 4-3 Pennsylvania Supreme Court majority.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted in its ruling that provisional votes can be counted only after a person’s eligibility to vote and the rejection of their mail-in ballot are confirmed.
“Counting Electors’ provisional ballots, when their mail ballots are void for failing to use a Secrecy Envelope, is a statutory right”, state Supreme Court Justice Christine Donohue wrote in the majority opinion, adding that the rule in question is “intended to alleviate potential disenfranchisement for eligible voters.
