HARRISBURG – A pair of state appeals courts in Pennsylvania have denied the bids of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign to reject ballots for perceived differences with voters’ signatures and to dispatch poll watchers to monitor early voting sites prior to Election Day.
Commonwealth Secretary Kathy Boockvar issued guidance to county election boards last month that signature comparison alone should not be used to evaluate the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, saying voters’ signatures change over time and such methods may discard valid ballots.
Such guidance was opposed by the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump, in its action against Boockvar.
In response, Boockvar asked the state Supreme Court to use its “King’s Bench” powers to intervene in the case, which originated in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and was recently dismissed.
The Trump campaign is appealing that dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, feeling that comparison and verification of signatures was crucial to preventing widespread voter fraud.
However, the state Supreme Court unanimously decided Friday that county election boards were not to reject absentee or mail-in ballots based on discrepancies associated with voter signatures.
“Presumably, in expanding voting by mail, the legislature sought to streamline the process for canvassing such ballots, perhaps to avoid undermining the expansion effort by eliminating the prospect that voters – including a potentially large number of new mail-in voters – would be brought before the board or the courts to answer third-party challenges,” Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Justice Debra Todd said.
“Regardless, [the Trump campaign] would have us interpret the Election Code, which now does not provide for time-of-canvassing ballot challenges, and which never allowed for signature challenges, as both requiring signature comparisons at canvassing, and allowing for challenges on that basis. We reject this invitation.”
Todd added it was “not our role under our tripartite system of governance to engage in judicial legislation and to rewrite a statute in order to supply terms which are not present therein, and we will not do so in this instance.”
Also on Friday, the Commonwealth Court upheld an earlier decision from the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, which opined that Pennsylvania’s Election Code does not permit campaign representatives to monitor satellite voting locations prior to Election Day, since they are not polling places.
It was a point of view upheld in its entirety by the Commonwealth Court.
“The trial court explained that the Board’s employees engage in the following ministerial acts: Registering voters, processing applications for mail-in ballots, providing mail-in ballots to voters to complete in private, and receiving the completed, sealed, mail-in ballots from voters,” Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler said.
“Therefore, the trial court concluded that the General Assembly did not ‘choose to give watchers the right to be present in the offices of the Board…while the Board’s employees are performing ministerial activities with respect to mail-in ballots prior to Election Day.”
For purposes of appellate review, the Commonwealth Court concluded that Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gary S. Glazer’s opinion “thoroughly discusses and correctly disposes of the legal issues before the Court” and affirmed Judge Glazer’s opinion in full.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania case 149 MM 2020 & Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania case 983 C.D. 2020
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com