The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that controversial mail-in voting laws will remain in place for now.
Republicans argue that those laws, which have been in place for two years and were struck down by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt on February 16, violate the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Had the court affirmed Leavitt’s decision, the no-excuse mail-in voting policy would have ended on March 15.
Though the Supreme Court overturned Leavitt’s ruling in its decision, it left the door open for further debate. Though the laws will remain in place for now, the status of the case before the court is still pending further action.
The administration of Governor Tom Wolf (D) asked the state’s highest court to keep the law in place, saying that ending the law “would, if anything, only exacerbate voter confusion and the danger of disenfranchisement.”
Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state, and midterm elections are scheduled to be held in November.
The mail-in voting law was enacted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with the 2020 election cycle. As of August, almost 1.5 million Pennsylvania voters are registered to vote by mail permanently.
Mail-in voting has been the subject of hot debate, especially after the 2020 presidential election. Policies and procedures for voting by mail – many of which were ambiguous or undefined due to the brand new implementation of the practice – were called into question.
As of July 2021, Georgia, a swing state that President Joe Biden won by a narrow margin, still had not produced crucial legal documents relating to absentee voting, which were supposed to be required by law.
“Seven months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, state and county officials in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 316,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election,” The Georgia Star News reported at the time.
“Nonetheless, Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and was awarded the state’s 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes – less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the November 3, 2020 presidential election in Georgia. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, 1.3 million of those votes were cast as absentee vote by mail ballots.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices” by PA Courts.
