PITTSBURGH – A federal judge has stayed a lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign over mail-in ballots until at least October, in order for state courts to first resolve questions of law over the collection and tallying of such ballots.
Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. first filed suit 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.
In the eight weeks since the suit was brought, a flurry of just over 400 filings have been made in the case, including motions to dismiss the case by various counties in Pennsylvania, motions to intervene from outside organizations with a vested interest in the case or join additional parties to the action.
“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 said more than 1.5 million ballots were returned.
The decision to expand mail-in voting, the plaintiffs said, 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 stated.
“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.”
Counsel for Boockvar filed a supportive reply to a motion to dismiss the lawsuit from the Trump campaign on Aug. 11
“Pennsylvania has a long and proud history of conducting free and fair elections. To that end, Pennsylvania has consistent procedures to ensure that properly cast ballots are counted and voters are treated equally across the Commonwealth, even in the midst of the current pandemic,” the reply stated.
“Ignoring that reality, plaintiffs’ opposition continues to propagate speculative predictions of widespread voter fraud and vote dilution in an attempt to manufacture an injury-in-fact. But the opposition fails to cure the substantial jurisdictional and other flaws in the amended complaint. In fact, plaintiffs’ concessions confirm this case should be dismissed or the Court should abstain.”
Boockvar’s counsel also claim the Trump campaign was mistaken as to the relationship between the instant case and a related state court proceeding, and further mistaken that federal courts intervene in state elections, absent good cause.
“Plaintiffs misstate the clear reality: Almost all of the same statutory provisions are central to the state-court proceeding, and far from those provisions being ‘clear and unmistakable,’ some of the disputed issues related to the collection and counting of ballots require an authoritative construction by the Commonwealth Court,” the reply added.
UPDATE
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan agreed with the defendants that the federal court should abstain from further proceedings, until state law questions pertinent to the instant case are resolved.
“After carefully considering the arguments raised by the parties, the Court finds that the appropriate course is abstention, at least for the time being. In other words, the Court will apply the brakes to this lawsuit, and allow the Pennsylvania state courts to weigh in and interpret the state statutes that undergird plaintiffs’ federal- constitutional claims,” Ranjan said in a ruling published Sunday.
“The Court is persuaded that the important principles underlying the Pullman abstention doctrine – federalism, comity, constitutional avoidance, error prevention, and judicial efficiency – all weigh strongly in favor of letting state courts decide predicate disputes about the meaning of Pennsylvania’s state election code.”
Ranjan was appointed to the federal bench by Trump, taking office in July 2019.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the mail-in voting process and claimed it would lead to widespread voter fraud – which Ranjan previously ruled that his campaign would need to provide proof of, in order to argue its case.
“The President’s fight against the problems of Pennsylvania’s radical new vote-by-mail system has been running on parallel tracks in state and federal court for some time,” Trump campaign adviser Justin Clark said in a statement responding to Ranjan’s staying of the case.
“The judge’s stay today is simply a recognition that the multitude of issues surrounding Pennsylvania’s dangerous voting system – including ballot harvesting and double voting – touch both federal and state constitutional issues. The federal court is simply going to reserve its judgment on this in the hopes that the state court will resolve these serious issues and guarantee that every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted – once,” Clark added.
After Oct. 5, the parties can request Ranjan lift the stay on the case.
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