October 8 :
In a significant development that could impact the next U.S. president, the highest court in Pennsylvania has ruled that voters can be notified and given the opportunity to correct any mistakes on their mail-in votes. This decision comes as a setback to Republicans who had fought to prohibit this practice in the state.
According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the RNC and its state affiliate filed their lawsuit against so-called notice and cure procedures too near to the November 5 election, which pits Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against Republican former President Donald Trump. The court declined to hear the case on October 5th.
If the United States presidential election were decided on a state-by-state basis by the Electoral College, the outcome would be decided in Pennsylvania, one of seven crucial battlegrounds. With 19 electoral votes, the victor from Pennsylvania will have 270 to claim victory. The Republican National Committee is embroiled in over a hundred and ten litigation spanning twenty-six states, including this one. While Republicans claim they are attempting to restore faith in elections by cracking down on unlawful voting, voting rights groups and legal experts are arguing that the legal blitz is really a strategy to limit Democratic votes and challenge possible defeats.
Some gains have been made by the Republican campaign. Another decision made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on October 5 was to not consider a challenge to a state law requiring the correct date to be printed on mail-in ballots. The plaintiffs in this case were voting rights organizations. In addition, the court ruled that the case was filed with too little time before the election.
The decision on the ballot dates was cited by RNC Chair Michael Whatley as a "huge win for election integrity," allowing Pennsylvania voters to confidently cast their mail ballots. The COVID-19 outbreak caused a dramatic increase in the usage of absentee ballots. Trump has cast doubt on the reliability of mail-in ballots without providing any proof, further supporting his baseless allegations that fraud tainted his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
The Republican National Committee claimed that the state legislature had not given the authority to the county election boards to implement "notice and cure" processes, thus on September 18th, the RNC asked the court to prevent the boards from doing so. The DNC and its state affiliate filed a lawsuit on September 20th, claiming that local boards were authorized to do so by the state's election laws and that the Republican-sought ruling would prohibit officials from encouraging voter turnout.
In a statement, Harris campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak hailed the ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as "a victory, not for Democrats but for our democracy."
