Pennsylvania High Court to Consider Some Trump Ballot Claims
Source: Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said it will consider claims by President Donald Trumps campaign that around 8,000 Philadelphia mail-in ballots should be disqualified because they werent filled out properly.
According to the campaign, the ballots should be tossed because the voters signed but did not further hand-write their names, addresses or dates on the outside of the return envelopes. A Philadelphia court denied the campaigns request on Friday, noting voters names and addresses were already pre-printed on the envelopes and that state election law was ambiguous on what it means to fill out ballots.
The state high court said Wednesday it would exercise emergency jurisdiction to determine whether those ballots should be disqualified, absent any allegation of fraud or irregularity.
Though Trump and his allies have publicly claimed that the presidents election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, especially in Democratic-leaning counties, many of their legal challenges do not allege fraud and instead focus on invalidating defective ballots cast by eligible voters.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pennsylvania-high-court-to-consider-some-trump-ballot-claims/ar-BB1b8CIL?li=BBnbfcQ&ocid=DELLDHP
If they disqualify those he'd still need 74,235 + 1 votes to reverse Pennsylvania.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/pennsylvania-2020/?itid=sn_election-2020&itid=lk_inline_manual_39
underpants
(182,794 posts)Pleeeease
George II
(67,782 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Once the info on the envelope is accepted as valid, isn't the ballot separated from the envelope, and no longer matchable to the envelope?
I mean, if it's NOT, then our votes are not anonymous ... which is a problem IMHO.
Seems to me even if the Judge was inclined to agree, there's no way to do what they're asking anyway.
yaesu
(8,020 posts)ballots either because of lower courts requesting it or for probable challenges.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)I had only read of ballot segregation due to challenges to the late-arrival status, maybe there were other classes of ballots they did the same with.
Good thinking
IsItJustMe
(7,012 posts)They were still counted which means that they were separated from their original envelope. Their Supreme Court would have to throw all of them out or none at all. I don't see their Supreme Court invalidating all those votes. But hell, I have seen some crazy shit over the past four years, so bottom line, who knows?
yaesu
(8,020 posts)die a quick death.
L.Pharmstrong
(152 posts)in the presence of persons representing each of the parties. The ballots are examined and either party can object. If an objection is made, the ballot and accompanying envelope would be set aside so a judge can later determined if the ballot should be counted.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)the envelopes were opened, hence my question.
L.Pharmstrong
(152 posts)My assumption is that they had to be tallied so the State could count them so they ultimately can be included in the vote tallies that are certified by the State. In any event, all courts even conservative ones are loath to disenfranchise voters and impinge on a fundamental First Amendment right without a very good reason. To the extent that there is ambiguity in the state election law, that should result in the law being construed in favor the voters, and in a manner that will not result their disenfranchisement. A tie goes to the runner, and the voters here are the runner.
Trueblue Texan
(2,429 posts)They'll just throw out 8,000 Biden votes, natch!
yaesu
(8,020 posts)madaboutharry
(40,209 posts)It seems like theyre enjoying this.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)I think these are the "segregated ballots".
still_one
(92,189 posts)transition
BumRushDaShow
(128,934 posts)81,348 difference from the above snapshot taken this afternoon.
As a note about the voter info on the back of those outer envelopes, there is also a block on the back in the opposite corner from where the voter declaration block is that includes a pre-printed "label" with the voter's name, address, voting wards/district, AND a barcode + a QR code that encodes all that voter info, which makes it easy for the election canvassers to scan the envelope in and prevent duplicates.
So hand-filling anything other than a signature (assuming the voter completed their own ballot and didn't need a 3rd party to complete the ballot and they would fill out another section on the back), would literally be like duplicating what is already there, although obviously they want you to do that anyway. I cannot vouch for whether all counties in PA did their envelopes like that (which may be a concern if they have no other area for an address and that section was left blank), but here in Philly, ours were like that with the pre-printed info already there.
JohnnyRingo
(18,628 posts)That's a loophole to discard a ballot on a technicality. The fraud is in the White House.
radius777
(3,635 posts)Note the Trump campaign is not looking for any irregularities in rural white areas, only in urban and diverse areas.
I doubt the court will go along with this, as the name/address were printed outside and to disenfranchise these voters on a such a minor technicality would be absurd.