February 18, 2022
A Pennsylvania court ruled that a previous decision reversing the current “universal mail-in ballot law” will stand and take effect in March.
Commonwealth Court Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote last month that the state’s mail-in ballot law violated the state Constitution.
Leavitt said, “Republicans who challenged the law are likely to prevail when the state Supreme Court reviews the case in March.”
“No-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient and has been used four times in the history of Pennsylvania,” Leavitt wrote in her opinion in late January.
“Approximately 1.38 million voters have expressed their interest in voting by mail permanently. If presented to the people, a constitutional amendment… is likely to be adopted. But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people,” she said.
In other words, you cannot simply make up rules on the fly sans the benefit of actually changing the state Constitution to make them legal.
The judge noted that an appeal by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration “assumes the higher court will overrule decisions that were rendered in 1862 and 1924, which would invalidate laws passed to expand absentee voting.”
Leavitt noted that Wolf’s administration lawyers did not assert the 1862 or 1924 rulings were in error.
The case will go to the state Supreme Court on March 8.
Republicans have assailed Pennsylvania mail-in ballot laws and vote counting policies, including one that allowed mail-in ballots to be recorded up to three days after the election so as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
Former President Donald Trump celebrated the news last month in an email to supporters.
“Big news out of Pennsylvania, great patriotic spirit is developing at a level that nobody thought possible. Make America Great Again!” he said.
The Democrat Pennsylvania State Attorney General does not want Republicans to proceed with their plans for the state’s election audit and he is stepping in to stop them.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro attempted late last year to block Republican state lawmakers from using a particular company to audit the results of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election, CBS reported.
Shapiro filed a court brief arguing that Envoy Sage LLC should not be given access to the personal data of more than nine million Pennsylvanians.
Shapiro said Envoy has no election experience and only has two employees.
Republican lawmakers hired Envoy Sage to do a forensic audit of the 2020 general election results and the results of this year’s May primary.
“PA Republicans want to send the personal, private information of nine-million Pennsylvanians to Envoy Sage LLC — a company led by a Republican donor with no experience in this work — to conduct their sham “audit.” It’s a violation of your privacy, and I’m suing to stop them,” the attorney general said on Twitter.
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