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harrisburg: An appeals court ruled Friday that Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law, passed in 2019 with bipartisan support, is unconstitutional, but he will remain in place as governor. the tom wolf administration files an appeal with the state supreme court.
The Commonwealth court’s ruling comes in response to lawsuits filed by Bradford County Commissioner Doug McClinko and a group of Republican state representatives, many of whom voted in favor of Bill 77, the law that expanded no-excuse mail-in voting in pennsylvania.
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In a 3-2 decision along party lines, the Republican justices, citing extensively from earlier state supreme court rulings, said such a change should be made through an amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution, a lengthy process that will ultimately would put the matter before the voters.
The high-stakes ruling now goes to the state’s supreme court, which is dominated by Democrats. But Bruce Ledewitz, a Duquesne University professor and state constitutional expert, said if the case is taken up by the high court, “it will be a closed legal issue.”
Although voting rights advocates criticized the commonwealth court’s decision on Friday, ledewitz said both sides have made valid legal arguments, and he doesn’t expect the high court, if it accepts the case, to rule on the rules. match lines.
“Broadly speaking, the supreme court has voted in favor of expanding access,” ledewitz said. “If I had to bet, which I don’t, I’d bet they reverse. but…it’s going to be a closed deal.”
state senate president jake corman (right, center) praised the commonwealth court’s decision, saying he had “no confidence” in mail-in ballots. in 2019, after helping pass the law, he called it “the most significant modernization of our electoral code in decades.”
democratic government tom wolf filed the gop-led lawsuit as an effort “to eliminate voting by mail in the service of the ‘big lie'”.
“The strength of our democracy and our country depends on eligible voters casting their ballots and selecting their leaders,” said wolf. “We need leaders who support removing more barriers to voting, not trying to silence people.”
The state’s mail-in voting law came under attack in the months before and after the 2020 presidential election. Republicans in the state at the time defied what they saw as the wolf administration pushing the limits of the law amid uncertainty about how to keep voters safe as the pandemic raged.
In the run-up to the November election, former President Donald Trump falsely said that mail-in ballots were “fraudulent in many cases.” When it became clear that he would lose Pennsylvania, he claimed without evidence that the election was being stolen from him as more mail-in ballots were counted.
Democrats have countered that Republican attempts to undermine the law are part of a national playbook to cast doubt on Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden. they believe it is part of an orchestrated campaign to use the legal system to sow unwarranted suspicion about the integrity of the election and thereby limit voter access, which would disproportionately affect voters of color.
in a statement on friday, shortly after the ruling was made public, trump praised the decision: “great news from pennsylvania, a great patriotic spirit is developing at a level no one thought possible. Make America Great Again!”
In making its determination, the panel of Commonwealth court judges said the state constitution requires voters to report to polling places on Election Day, unless they are permitted to vote absentee. . the justices, in support of their reasoning, noted that the constitution has been amended several times to specify the exact groups of people who would qualify to vote absentee.
No excuses mail-in voting, the court said, is not explicitly spelled out in the constitution and would therefore require a constitutional amendment to be legal. Constitutional amendments, unlike traditional bills, must follow a lengthy process: they must first be approved by the legislature in two consecutive sessions, and then appear on the ballot so voters have the final say.
“No-excuses mail-in voting makes franchising more convenient and has been used four times in Pennsylvania’s history. approximately 1.38 million voters have expressed an interest in voting by mail permanently,” states the decision, drafted by Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt.
“if presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end … The requirement to vote in person is likely to be adopted,” continued Leavitt. “But a constitutional amendment must be brought to the people and adopted into our fundamental law before legislation authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting can be ‘written into our statutes.'”
marian schneider, senior advisor for voting rights policy at the aclu of pennsylvania, which supported the original mail-in voting law, said the analysis was flawed.
“the state constitution requires that absentee voting be available to voters with disabilities, those who will not be in their precinct on election day for business, religious purposes, and those deployed in the military,” Schneider said in a statement. “reading that language to mean that absentee voting is therefore prohibited for all other voters is a serious misreading of the constitution.”
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