Pennsylvania Ordered to Set Aside Some Ballots With ID Cures
Pennsylvania Must Segregate Some Flawed Ballots, Judge Says
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s campaign won a court order requiring Pennsylvania to segregate mail-in ballots from voters who were asked to provide missing proof of identification during an extended period for allowing such fixes.
The ruling Thursday means the crucial battleground state must set aside ballots received from Nov. 10 through Nov. 12 from voters who needed to fix an ID problem. Ballots with “cured” ID issues that are received before that aren’t being challenged.
The ruling was the latest in a flurry of legal developments in suits the campaign filed as Trump faces the prospect of losing the presidential election with races tightening in Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
The campaign and the national Republican party had sued alleging Pennsylvania improperly extended the deadline for curing missing identification, a potentially common error as millions of voters mail ballots for the first time due to the pandemic.
Judge Hannah Leavitt said she’d rule later on whether the cure extension was valid, and what to do with the ballots.
The decision is a procedural victory for Trump and the GOP in a hotly contested state that’s still too close to call. All mail-in ballots in the state that are received after Nov. 3 are already being segregated in case Trump succeeds in his bid to invalidate the state’s extended deadline of Nov. 6.
The campaign seeks a court declaration that the extension authorized by Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar is illegal.
“If Secretary Boockvar’s guidance is allowed to continue, it will undoubtedly create a high risk of jeopardizing the integrity of the November 3, 2020, General Election by allowing for the counting and canvassing of absentee and mail-in ballots by electors who fail to provide by November 9, 2020, the requisite proof of identification,” the campaign claimed.
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