The Supreme Court Hands Trump A Big Loss In Pennsylvania

In a Friday night order, the Supreme Court let stand a state Supreme Court ruling related to the primary election that people who have errors on their ballot envelopes can cast provisional ballots.

Justice Alito wrote the order:

The application for stay presented to JUSTICE ALITO and by him referred to the Court is denied.
Statement of JUSTICE ALITO , with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE GORSUCH join, respecting the denial of the application for a stay.

This case concerns a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that adopted a controversial interpretation of important provisions of the Pennsylvania Election Code.
Specifically, the court held that a provisional ballot must be counted even if the voter previously submitted an invalid mail-in ballot within the time required by law.

The applicants contend that this interpretation flouts the plain meaning of the state election code, see 25 Pa. Cons. Stat. §3050(a.4)(5)(ii) (2019), and that the interpretation is so far afield that it also violates the Elections Clause and the Electors Clause of the Constitution of the United States. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cl. 2; Moore v. Harper, 600 U. S. 1, 37 (2023). Seeking to prevent county election boards from following that interpretation in next week’s election, the applicants ask us to stay the State Supreme Court’s judgment or at least to order the sequestration of ballots
that may be affected by that interpretation.

The application of the State Supreme Court’s interpretation in the upcoming election is a matter of considerable importance, but even if we agreed with the applicants’ federal constitutional argument (a question on which I express no view at this time), we could not prevent the consequences they fear. The lower court’s judgment concerns just two votes in the long-completed Pennsylvania primary. Staying that judgment would not impose any binding obligation on any of the Pennsylvania officials who are responsible for the conduct of this year’s election. And because the only state election officials who are parties in this case are the members of the board of elections in one small county, we cannot order other election boards to sequester affected ballots.

For these reasons, I agree with the order denying the application.

In Pennsylvania in order to expand mail-in voting, Republicans insisted on rules requiring envelopes to be signed and dated, and ballots to be placed in an inner security envelope. If a ballot gets invalidated for a date or signature error, the state system notifies the voter of the error, and and most counties in the state allow the voter to cast a provisional ballot, which counts in the election total.

Trump and RNC have been suing to not allow voters to vote provisionally and toss their ballots out. The Supreme Court sided with Democrats and the state Supreme Court which upheld the ability for voters to cast provisional votes that count.

Pennsylvania is a state where elections are close, and Trump’s effort disenfranchise potentially tens of thousands of voters has failed.

The ruling is a defeat for Trump and victory for democracy in Pennsylvania.

To comment on this story, join us on Reddit.

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

Latest posts by Jason Easley (see all)