A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by six Republican members of the House of Representatives, which targeted absentee ballots including those mailed home by troops and their families overseas. The Republican legislators took issue with Pennsylvania’s process for verifying the identity of the voters behind absentee ballots..
But U.S. District Judge Christoper Conner ruled Tuesday that separating and verifying roughly 25,000 absentee ballots so close to the Nov. 5 election would “lead to voter confusion” and “upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters.”
Such a change, Conner ruled, could potentially delay the certification of the state’s elections.
Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group, described the decision as a victory for voting rights.
The lawsuit filed by the six Republican lawmakers could have prevented ballots cast by troops stationed overseas and their families from being counted in next week’s general election, the group said in a Tuesday news release.
“The dismissal of this case protects Pennsylvania’s longstanding practices under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), ensuring that military members and overseas citizens can vote without unnecessary, last-minute barriers,” former Marine captain Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, said in a statement. “Attempts to curtail these rights under the pretense of ‘election security’ are unacceptable. Frankly, the argument made by plaintiffs was flat out offensive to those serving and who have served, to protect the very right to vote – and have that vote count.”
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Tuesday’s ruling comes exactly one week before the Nov. 5 general election. Polls show that former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are essentially tied in most swing states.
The lawsuit echoes similar Republican efforts in Michigan and North Carolina to challenge overseas ballots. One of the congressmen who filed the lawsuit previously told Task & Purpose that the legal action was necessary to protect legal votes and make sure that Pennsylvania election officials comply with applicable state and federal laws.
“We must ensure that the votes of our brave service members and overseas citizens are protected from dilution and manipulation,” siad Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.). “Every illegal vote cancels out the legal vote of an American citizen.”
The six lawmakers had argued that the move was necessary to prevent illegal votes from being cast, though Conner noted in his dismissal that the Republicans offered no details or plan for how Pennsylvania officials would go about a large-scale identification drive.
Conner also noted that the six Republican lawmakers waited more than two years after Pennsylvania announced the rules now in place before raising their legal challenge.
An attorney representing the lawmakers initially said that the lawmakers only moved forward with their lawsuit after a federal indictment was recently unsealed revealing attempts by Iran to interfere in the upcoming election.
But the judge said that the Republicans were stoking “phantom fears” by implying a connection between the Iranian efforts and the two-year-old Pennsylvania election rules.
“Pressed for anything that might corroborate whether ‘there’s been some Iranian influence over Pennsylvania’s overseas ballots,’ counsel effectively conceded that all he had was ‘concerns,’ Conner wrote. “Plaintiffs cannot rely on phantom fears of foreign malfeasance to excuse their lack of diligence.”