Nov. 2 (UPI) — Thousands of Pennsylvania voters who submitted potentially defective mail-in ballots can cast provisional ballots on election day.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined a challenge filed by the Pennsylvania GOP after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week ruled affected voters can cast provisional ballots in person during the general election.
Justice Samuel Alito said the matter is important but the Supreme Court would not get involved with the general election just days away on Tuesday.
Alito in a two-page opinion said the case arose from two disputed ballots submitted during the Democratic Party primary in Pennsylvania’s Butler County.
Those ballots lacked secrecy envelopes, which are required by Pennsylvania law, so the Butler County board of electors is allowing those two voters to cast provisional ballots.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that if a voter submitted an invalid mail-in ballot, that voter can submit a provisional ballot by voting in person and have that voted count.
The state court’s ruling affects all counties, including those that previously denied provisional ballots being cast by voters who submitted invalid mail-in ballots.
Many counties in Pennsylvania allowed voters to submit provisional ballots in such cases, but some did not.
The Pennsylvania GOP argued the ruling violates the Elections and Electors clauses of the U.S. Constitution, and asked the Supreme Court to stay the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling in the matter or at least sequester ballots that might be affected by the state court’s ruling.
Alito said the “lower court’s judgment concerns just two votes in the long-completed Pennsylvania primary.”
The only state election officials who are party to the case are the members of the board of elections in Butler County and the Supreme Court “cannot order other election boards to sequester affected ballots,” Alito wrote.
Had the Supreme Court ordered the county board to sequester the ballots, the ruling potentially would have affected more than 5,000 ballots in Pennsylvania, NBC News reported.