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PITTSBURGH – A federal judge in Pittsburgh has denied an attempt by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign to overcome state laws governing mail-in voting, ballot signatures and election poll watchers, ruling it had not proved allegations of potential voter fraud statewide.
In his 138-page ruling handed down on Saturday, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan called the Trump campaign’s suspicions towards the state’s permitting of ballot drop-boxes, its methods for confirming the validity of signatures on mail-in ballots and its restrictions on poll watchers “speculative” and “not concrete.”
“While plaintiffs may not need to prove actual voter fraud, they must at least prove that such fraud is ‘certainly impending.’ They haven’t met that burden. At most, they have pieced together a sequence of uncertain assumptions,” Ranjan said.
According to Ranjan, the Trump campaign assumed “potential fraudsters may attempt to commit election fraud through the use of drop boxes or forged ballots, or due to a potential shortage of poll watchers”, that “numerous election-security measures used by county election officials may not work” and “their own security measures may have prevented that fraud.”
“All of these assumptions could end up being true, and these events could theoretically happen. But so could many things. The relevant question here is: Are they ‘certainly impending’? At least based on the evidence presented, the answer to that is ‘no.’ And that is the legal standard that plaintiffs must meet,” Ranjan said.
Ranjan dismissed the Trump campaign’s voter fraud fears as “limited” and “garden variety disputes.”
“Even if the court assumed some ‘forged’ applications or ballots were approved or counted, this is insufficient to establish substantial, widespread fraud that undermines the electoral process,” Ranjan stated.
“Rather, limited instances of ‘forged’ ballots — which, according to plaintiffs’ definition, includes an individual signing for their spouse or child — amount to what the law refers to as ‘garden variety’ disputes of limited harm. As has long been understood, federal courts should not intervene in such ‘garden variety’ disputes.”
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.
“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.
With delays in the U.S. Postal Service and the coronavirus pandemic, Pennsylvania is permitting the use of drop boxes for public convenience in submitting both absentee and mail-in ballots. The Trump campaign and state Democrats are also currently battling in both federal and state court over their legality.
“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 Trump campaign’s suit stated.
Counsel for Boockvar filed a supportive reply to a motion to dismiss the lawsuit from the Trump campaign on Aug. 11, and 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. Ranjan stayed the case on Aug. 23.
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.
Last month, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania approved the use of drop boxes and a three-day extension to count mail-in ballots.
A flurry of motions and cross-motions for summary judgment were recently filed by various parties to the litigation – and subsequently, Boockvar’s counsel filed a petition on Oct. 6 for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to use its “King’s Bench” powers, or extraordinary jurisdiction over the state’s lower courts, to intercede in the case.
The state Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will take up the case.
The office of Gov. Tom Wolf called Ranjan’s decision “a complete rejection of the continued misinformation about voter fraud and corruption, and those who seek to sow chaos and discord ahead of the upcoming election.”
The Trump campaign vowed to appeal.
“Clearly, we disagree with the Western District’s decision on unsecure drop boxes, and President Trump’s team will immediately file an appeal to the Third Circuit to continue our fight to protect every Pennsylvania voter. We look forward to a swift Third Circuit decision that will further protect Pennsylvania voters from the Democrats’ radical voting system,” Matthew Morgan, the Trump campaign’s general counsel stated.
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