Voter Fraud/Suppression

[Isgrimnur]

Supreme Court rules Pennsylvania may count back-up votes when mail ballots are rejected

US Supreme Court on Friday left in place a Pennsylvania court ruling that is expected to expand options for voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons to have their votes counted, in a defeat for Republicans in a critical battleground state.

There were no noted dissents.

For Pennsylvania voters who made a mistake in how they prepared their mail-in ballots, it could ensure they have a backup option to have a provisional ballot counted.

It’s unclear how many Pennsylvania voters will benefit because not every county notifies voters of defective mail ballots. But both sides in the appeal before the Supreme Court characterized the dispute as affecting potentially “thousands” of votes at a minimum.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote a brief statement – which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – essentially arguing that the court couldn’t give the Republicans who brought the appeal what they had sought even if it wanted to.

The case, Alito wrote, “is a matter of considerable importance.” But, he wrote, “even if we agreed with the applicants’ federal constitutional argument (a question on which I express no view at this time), we could not prevent the consequences they fear.”

[Isgrimnur]

Judges deny requests to block DOJ from monitoring polls

Federal judges denied two states’ requests to bar the Justice Department (DOJ) from dispatching lawyers to monitor adherence to federal voting rights laws on Election Day.

Both Missouri and Texas asked federal courts to keep DOJ lawyers away from their polls. Missouri’s attorney general and secretary of state said any monitoring would “displace state election authorities,” and Texas’s attorney general contended that “Texas law alone determines who can monitor voting in Texas.”

The DOJ announced its intent to send poll monitors to 27 states in a press release Friday, asserting the agency “regularly deploys its staff to monitor for compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections in communities all across the country.” The agency plans to monitor one city in Missouri, St. Louis, and eight counties in Texas.
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U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk found that Missouri did not reach its burden of showing that the state would face irreparable harm if the Justice Department’s monitors watched over the city’s polls.
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In Texas, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk early Tuesday ordered the DOJ to verify that the agency would not send “observers” to poll locations in Texas while also denying issuing the restraining order.

“The Court cannot issue a temporary restraining order without further clarification on the distinction between ‘monitoring’ and ‘observing’ on the eve of a consequential election,” Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, said in the ruling.

Texas and the DOJ appeared reached an agreement on the matter before Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

The Justice Department said that its election monitors would remain outside of polling and central count locations, would be subject to Texas election law within 100 feet of those locations and would not interfere with voters attempting to cast their ballots. The Lone Star State withdrew its motion for a temporary restraining order.