WILLIAMSPORT – An amended version of a lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s campaign has walked back claims that Republican observers were not allowed to properly view the counting of ballots in highly Democratic areas of Pennsylvania.
The suit initially alleged that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also did not use uniform election procedures statewide, thereby creating an unconstitutional and “two-track” ballot counting system that gave the win to President-Elect Joe Biden.
According to the complaint, originally filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Nov. 9 before Judge Matthew W. Brann, the Trump campaign is further seeking to prevent the certification of the Presidential Election results in Pennsylvania.
The suit was filed against Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and the Boards of Elections of the following seven counties: Allegheny, Centre, Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia, Montgomery and Northampton.
It claimed that observers were not permitted to witness the counting of over 682,000 votes in heavily-Democratic Philadelphia and Allegheny counties, and further seeks the dismissal of additional mail-in ballots which the campaign says were allowed to be cured, despite being defective.
“Through the arbitrary and illegal actions of the Secretary, Pennsylvania created a two-track system of voting resulting in voters being treated differently depending on how they chose to exercise their franchise,” the suit stated.
“The first, marked by voters appearing personally at the polls complied with transparency and verifiability requirements of Pennsylvania Election Code. The second, marked by a mass of paper ballots received through the mail, was cloaked in darkness and complied with none of those transparency and verifiability requirements. This two-track election system not only violates plaintiffs’ rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, but also violates the structure of the Constitution that elections in the states must be carried out as directed by their respective legislatures.”
UPDATE
An amended version of the suit filed on Sunday dropped the improper poll-watching claims, and what remains are allegations targeting county election officials for their supposed improper handling of mail-in ballots and violation of state election law.
However, the litigation still wishes to prevent statewide certification of the results.
At the present time, President-elect Joe Biden is almost 70,000 votes ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania and any ballots which may be affected by the litigation will not be enough to overturn the previously-reported result.
Despite being the projected loser of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes on Nov. 7, the Trump campaign asserted that the granting of its requested actions by the Court could lead to the president winning the state.
According to Trump campaign spokes Tim Murtaugh, “We are still making the strong argument that 682,479 ballots were counted in secret. Our poll watchers were denied the legal right to meaningful access to vote counting and we still have that claim in our complaint. We reserved our rights to make that argument.”
Brann slated arguments in the case to be heard Tuesday and an evidentiary hearing to be held on Thursday, though attorneys for Boockvar said in a dismissal motion also filed Sunday that the abridged, amended version of the complaint doesn’t appear strong enough to necessitate those proceedings.
“The Court still lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the amended complaint still fails to state a plausible claim for relief on any legal theory and the extant state law issues still should be resolved by Pennsylvania state courts,” the dismissal motion read, in part.
“The amended complaint adds no new claims for relief and instead materially narrows the pending allegations to a single claim under the same theory alleged in the original complaint. For this reason, although the Secretary does not believe that oral argument is necessary to dispense with plaintiffs’ allegations and claims, counsel for the Secretary will appear and be prepared for argument as scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, if the Court still intends to hear argument.”
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania case 4:20-cv-02078
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com