US Election: Supreme Court Permits Extension for Pennsylvania Ballots

On Monday, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling by the highest court in Pennsylvania, enabling election workers to tally several mailed ballots collected up to three days following Election Day.

In a presidential race, the state of Pennsylvania is a crucial battlefield.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided that an extension for three days was necessary due to the coronavirus pandemic and postal service delays.

It had sought for the collection of ballots mailed explicitly on or before Election Day and especially those with incomplete or illegible postmarks "unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day."

The outcome implied that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom President Trump selected to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following her passing last month, might perform a crucial role in electoral disputes.

The said judge is scheduled to be confirmed next week.

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As per the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's Office, 1,755,940 ballots had been sought by the Democrats in Pennsylvania, while Republicans had sought 672,381, as of Friday.

For Democrats in the region who have been seeking to extend access to voting in the midst of an outbreak, such ruling is a big win for a party that has been demanding absentee ballots in much larger numbers than Republicans.

One of the last states to submit is already predicted to be Pennsylvania, with a nationwide law banning election officers from starting to collect ballots before Election Day and Republicans in the state legislature suggesting that they would not allow them much time.

In Pennsylvania, where multiple voting-related cases are unresolved, such as whether election officers may have to conduct signature matching on absentee ballots, the ruling also eliminates another legal challenge facing elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court was requested by two Republican state senators and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to stop the handling of ballots lacking legible postmarks. The senators claimed that the ruling of the state court was "an open invitation to voters to cast their ballots after Election Day, thereby injecting chaos and the potential for gamesmanship into what was an orderly and secure schedule of clear, bright-line deadlines."

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In order to amend state laws to run elections, the U.S. Supreme Court has not waited to stop rulings given by federal judges. For example, in April, the judges reversed the order of a federal judge that had extended the date in Wisconsin for absentee voting.

State courthouses find it very challenging to rule as the Supreme Court usually cedes them in cases involving state law interpretations and authorizes state legislators to adjust the times, locations including methods in which congressional elections are to be held.

In reply, a clause of the State Constitution promoting "free and fair elections" enabled the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to prolong the deadline, Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania's attorney general, a Democrat, stated.

He further said that the state court's ruling was "consistent with how Pennsylvania law handles military and overseas ballots timely cast but not received until after Election Day."