Voters in key swing state will be able to cast provisional vote if they forget to put mail-in ballot in secrecy envelope
Pennsylvania voters will be able to cast a provisional vote if they make an error and forget to put their mail-in vote in a required secrecy envelope, the US supreme court ruled on Friday, a decision that could lead to thousands more votes being counted in a key battleground state where the presidential race is extremely tight.
The scope of the ruling is not immediately clear. As of Thursday, nearly 9,000 out of 1.6m mail-in ballots returned had arrived without a secrecy envelope, the Associated Press reported.“In Pennsylvania and across the country, Trump and his allies are trying to make it harder for your vote to count, but our institutions are stronger than his shameful attacks.
The dispute stemmed from a special election earlier this year in which two voters in Butler county, near Pittsburgh, had their mail-in ballots rejected, were invited to cast a provisional ballot, and then had their provisional ballots rejected. Pennsylvania is the biggest presidential election battleground this year, with 19 electoral votes. Donald Trump won the state in 2016, then lost it in 2020.
The ruling means that Erie county’s elections office will be open every day through Monday for voters to go in, cancel the mail-in ballot they did not receive in the mail, and get another one over the counter, said Cliff Levine, a lawyer for the state Democratic party. A Bucks county judge had ordered the three-day extension in response to a Trump campaign lawsuit alleging voters faced disenfranchisement when they were turned away by county application-processing offices that had struggled to keep up with demand, leading to frustration and anger among voters.
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