The Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the deadline for accepting mail ballots and will allow voters to submit their ballots through drop boxes and removed , reported NPR.
The decisions come less than two months before
Election Day and as a flurry of election-related lawsuits continue to pile up
around the country.
In dozens of cases, parties, campaigns and other
groups are trying to sort questions about voting that have cropped up because
of the pandemic. Courts are being asked to clarify murky areas of election law
that will be exacerbated by the millions more mail ballots that will be cast
this year. The questions include whether a ballot must be received by or
postmarked by Election Day, must there be a witness for a mail-in ballot, what
standards are being used to judge a voter's signature and whether drop boxes
can be used to return ballots instead of relying on the postal service.
2020 is the first year Pennsylvanians have the
option to vote by mail without needing to specify a reason. The Pennsylvania
Department of State says nearly two million people have already asked for mail
ballots for the upcoming election — and that figure is expected to grow.
"This is a victory that will help ensure that
every eligible voter will more easily be able to cast their ballot and have it
counted fairly," Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, wrote in
Mail ballots will now be accepted if they are
received by 5 p.m. on the Friday after the election and were either postmarked
by Nov. 3 or there is no evidence to suggest they were sent after Election Day.
Previously, mail ballots had to be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
During the state's June primary, tens of thousands
of ballots arrived
after the cutoff due to postal service delays and election officials
scrambling to manage the deluge of mail ballots because of the pandemic. The
Pennsylvania Democratic Party and the state's Democratic secretary of state
filed suit to extend the deadline.
"While [the timeline] may be feasible under normal
conditions, it will unquestionably fail under the strain of COVID-19 and the
2020 presidential election, resulting in the disenfranchisement of
voters," Justice Max Baer, a Democrat, wrote
for the majority.
Though the decision will enfranchise more voters —
it will also mean that a final vote tally will take longer to certify. Under
current Pennsylvania law, clerks cannot begin counting mail ballots until
Election Day.
More Democrats are expected
to vote by mail than Republicans, in part because President Trump for
months has seeded doubts, without any evidence, about the integrity of mail
ballots.
The ruling to give the legal green light to drop
boxes is another win for the Democrats. The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in
federal court to stop their use — but that case was paused while
state courts weighed in.
To read more CLICK HERE
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment