It’s funny how states have 4 years to get ready for presidential elections, but in liberal controlled swing states, like Pennsylvania, the action heats up right before election day! Pennsylvania’s liberal highest court gave the Democratic Party a series of victories Thursday, including one allowing for technical issues and gray areas in the battleground state’s expanded voting law.
- Granted the Democratic Party’s request to order a three-day extension of Pennsylvania’s Election Day deadline to count mailed-in ballots.
- Ruled that the Green Party’s candidate for president did not strictly follow procedures for getting on the ballot in November and cannot appear on it.
- Upheld the state’s poll-watcher law, which Trump’s campaign had sought to invalidate in federal court. This would have allowed poll watchers — a party volunteer who sits inside a polling place to monitor Election Day activity for perceived irregularities — who are registered voters, from outside the county, to serve too. The court’s decision means that only registered voters who live in the county can serve as poll watchers. The GOP argued they can’t staff all the voting locations in Philly, wanting to bring in outside help, the court rejected their request.
Via Breitbart The state Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Democratic majority, granted the Democratic Party’s request to order a three-day extension of Pennsylvania’s Election Day deadline to count mailed-in ballots. And it ruled that the Green Party’s candidate for president did not strictly follow procedures for getting on the ballot in November and cannot appear on it.
Ballots that are eligible to be counted must be postmarked by the time polls close and be received by county election boards at 5 p.m. on Nov. 6, three days after the Nov. 3 election. Republicans have opposed changing that deadline.
The court’s ruling also authorized the use of satellite election offices and drop boxes by counties. Areas with heavy concentrations of registered Democratic voters, Philadelphia and its heavily populated suburbs, are planning to use satellite election offices and drop boxes to help relieve the pressure from an avalanche of mailed-in ballots expected in the presidential election.
Republicans had sought to outlaw the use of such drop boxes or satellite election offices, saying they are not explicitly authorized under state law.
In a slightly earlier decision Thursday, the high court along the same partisan lines reversed a ruling by a Republican judge in a lower court on the candidacy of Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins. Democrats have everything they can to keep the Green Party candidates off the ballot, worried that they will siphon otherwise liberal voters in close contests against Republicans in the politically polarized state.
In this case, Democratic party activists challenged what they said were disqualifying irregularities in how the Green Party filed affidavits for the presidential candidate. They argued they are supposed to accompany paperwork with at least 5,000 voter signatures to get on the ballot.
A 2019 state law greatly expanded access to mail-in balloting in Pennsylvania and, fueled by concerns over the pandemic, more than 3 million voters are expected to cast ballots by mail in the Nov. 3rd election.
This huge increase in mail-in ballots is a major concern for the GOP.
Considering the amount of voter fraud, in cities like Patterson, NJ, and the universal mail-in voting fiasco in Las Vegas, just a small percentage bump for Biden in these mail-in ballots could wipe out President Donald Trump’s 44,000-vote victory margin he had over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 16, which helped him win the election.
Polls show a tight race between Trump and Democrat Presidential nominee Joe Biden in Pennsylvania. Losing Pennsylvania could prove fatal to Biden’s chances of defeating Trump. No Democrat has won the presidency without winning Pennsylvania since Harry S. Truman in 1948. On the other hand, a Trump loss in Pennsylvania would require him to pick up a state like Nevada, which he only lost by 2 percent in 16, but with the massive mail-in voting, open to fraud, Nevada might be out of reach and he will fight harder than ever to hold on the Keystone state.
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