PITTSBURGH – President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has launched litigation against the state’s election authorities, charging the current system for submitting and counting mail-in ballots is illegal.
Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on June 29 versus Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the Boards of Election of all 67 Pennsylvania counties.
In addition to the Trump campaign, plaintiffs in the case are the Republican National Committee, Republican U.S. Reps. Glenn Thompson, John Joyce, Mike Kelly and Guy Reschenthaler, plus voters Melanie Stringhill Patterson and Clayton David Show.
“To be free and fair, elections must be transparent and verifiable. Yet, defendants have inexplicably chosen a path that jeopardizes election security and will lead – and has already led – to the disenfranchisement of voters, questions about the accuracy of election results and ultimately chaos heading into the upcoming Nov. 3 General Election,” according to the lawsuit.
It is the view of the plaintiffs that such concerns are a by-product of Pennsylvania’s decision last year to provide voters with the option to vote by mail without a stated reason for doing so through Act 77.
When the coronavirus pandemic caused Pennsylvania to postpone its April primary election until June, more than 1.8 million voters applied for a mail-in or absentee ballot. State elections officials say more than 1.5 million ballots were returned.
The decision to expand mail-in voting, the plaintiffs say, led to voters submitting absentee and mail-in ballots during the June 2 Primary Election in places such as shopping centers, parking lots, fairgrounds, parks, retirement homes, college campuses, fire halls, municipal government buildings, and elected officials’ offices.
Moreover, the plaintiffs contend these voters took these actions with “the knowledge, consent and/or approval of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.”
“This is all a direct result of defendants’ hazardous, hurried, and illegal implementation of unmonitored mail-in voting which provides fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos,” the suit states.
“Contrary to the direction of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, defendants have sacrificed the sanctity of in-person voting at the altar of unmonitored mail-in voting and have exponentially enhanced the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted in the upcoming General Election.”
A spokesperson for Boockvar offered no comment on the litigation.
For counts of federal constitutional and state law violations, the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction that would enjoin Pennsylvania from permitting absentee and mail-in ballots to be returned to locations other than the offices of the county boards of elections.
They also want an injunction to prevent the same boards of elections from counting absentee and mail-in ballots that “lack a secrecy envelope” or have any text or symbols on envelopes revealing the elector’s identity, party affiliation or candidate preference – and want pollsters to not only be permitted to monitor the tallying of votes outside where they live, but also observe counting of all mail-in ballots.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:20-cv-00966
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com