What happened in Pennsylvania in 2019 and 2020?
QUICK OVERVIEW
[Scroll down for details.]
The case goes back to 2019 when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 77, which, among other things, amended the state’s election code to create universal no-excuse mail-in voting statewide. Before the act, voters had to establish they fit the criteria of an absentee voter before being able to cast a ballot by mail. The legislation easily passed the state House of Representatives 138-61 and the state Senate 35-14.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Pennsylvania months later, voters, especially Democrats, took advantage of the law’s stay-at-home voting provisions. […]
Two weeks after the election, Republican candidates filed a petition for review in the state’s Commonwealth Court seeking to halt the certification of the Nov. 3, 2020, General Election. They argued the Pennsylvania Constitution requires voters to vote in person on Election Day unless they qualified for absentee voting and asked the Commonwealth Court to block certification of the election results. That court preliminarily enjoined certification.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stepped in and found that the challengers had waited too long to bring their lawsuit and threw out the lower court’s injunction. The candidates then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, and it refused to do so. The case returned to Commonwealth Court which ruled 3-2 that the mail-in voting provision violated the state constitution.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania heard oral arguments in the case on March 8 and issued its ruling August 2, reversing the lower court.
Act 77
Among other things, Act 77 of 2019 “amended the state’s election code to create universal no-excuse mail-in voting statewide.”
– Law Details
– Votes:
Oct. 29, 2019 – House vote: 138 Yes, 61 No, 4 E
Oct. 29, 2019 – Senate vote: 35 Yes, 14 No
In 2019: Pennsylvania’s Constitution was violated
Pennsylavania’s mail-in law violated the state’s constitution:
The universal mail-voting law violated the Pennsylvania Constitution. The commonwealth’s Constitution requires a person to vote on Election Day unless they meet certain criteria. Changing the mail-balloting laws in Pennsylvania would require a constitutional amendment.
In 2020: Democrats Disenfranchised Voters and the Democrat-dominated Pennsylvania Supreme Court behaved like the legal department of the state’s Democratic Party:
– In 2020, “the Democrat Party of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit requesting six changes to the Pennsylvania Election Code, again wrongly using the courts instead of the legislature.”
– “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rendered a verdict less than two months before the 2020 general election. The decision made five major changes to our election laws.”
1) It allowed for drop boxes. [Court docs.]
2) It extended the “received-by” deadline by three days past Election Day for mail-in ballots postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day and included a presumption of timely mailing for ballots without a legible postmark or proof of service. [Court docs.]
3) County boards of election were not required “to implement a ‘notice and opportunity to cure’ procedure” for mailed ballots.
4) Electors voting by mail were required to use a secrecy envelope or have their ballots rendered invalid.
5) A residency requirement for poll watchers was found constitutional.
Also: Ruled counties must accept mail-in and absentee ballots even if signatures on the outer envelope do not match those on file. [Case]
And: On September 17, the Court removed the Green Party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates from the state ballot. [Court docs.]
PA Legislator explained: How Pennsylvania Democrats Hijacked Act 77:
In October 2019, Senate leadership brought SB 421 (later Act 77) to the full floor for a vote. I was in my fourth month as a Senator after a career of serving 30 years in the US Army.
Act 77 passed the Senate by a 35-14 vote along near party lines. Every single Republican Senator voted for it, while nearly every Democrat voted against.
Democrats were against the bill for several reasons. It required all voting machines to be equipped with paper trails to ensure accountability for post-election audits. It also eliminated “straight ticket” voting. Pennsylvania had been one of a handful of states for voters to press a single button that automatically selects candidates of the same party. Numerous studies over the years have shown that straight ticket voting benefits democrat candidates. That advantage vanished when the researchers examined voter behavior in elections after straight ticket voting had been eliminated in a respective state.
When the Senate passed Act 77, critical election security safeguards were in place to prevent mass fraud. All mail-in ballots were to be signature verified and turned in by Election Day to count. “Defective” absentee mail-in ballots were not to be counted and poll watchers were expected to be permitted to observe the counting of all mail-in ballots at every location.
However, using the pretext of COVID, Pennsylvania Democrats made their move to hijack Act 77 and transform it into something NO Republican voted for.
The Democrat majority Supreme Court, Governor Wolf, and Wolf’s disgraced Secretary of State Boockvar unconstitutionally rewrote Act 77.
Let’s start with the Supreme Court. On September 17, 2020, in direct contravention of the wording of Act 77, the court extended the deadline for mailed ballots to be received from Election Day, to three days after Election Day. Then the court declared that “just for the 2020 general election”, ballots mailed without a postmark should be presumed to have been received on time. Lastly, the court mandated that mail-in ballots lacking a verified signature were to be accepted. This meant that any ballot, without a signature, without a postal mark would be counted, even if received three days after the election. This policy making by the court opened up Pandora’s Box for uncertainty in the outcome of the election.
Not to be outdone, Secretary of State Boockvar took it upon herself to join in on the hijacking of Act 77 in late October 2020. Boockvar issued guidance directed only to certain counties to “cure” defective ballots. This allowed voting officials in those counties to correct ballots so that they could be counted.
Boockvar dishonestly told the Supreme Court that mail-in ballots received after the November 3 election would be set aside, pending an appeal to nullify ballots collected in the days after the election. However, the Secretary then told counties to tabulate the ballots as quickly as possible, co-mingling ballots received by Election Day with those received after. To this date, we don’t know how many late arriving ballots ended up being tabulated in the final results.
Summer, Fall 2020: How Pennsylvania Democrats Deliberately Stoked 2020 Election Chaos:
The seeds of public distrust were sowed in June [2020], when Wolf decreed by executive order that mail-in ballots in the primary election could trickle in from certain counties for an extra week. The state Democratic Party followed up in July [2020] by suing to similarly extend the general election deadline for mail-in ballots. Their suit also sought to allow unprecedented “drop boxes” to collect mail-ins and to limit the number of election observers.
Wolf’s administration then asked the state’s elected Supreme Court, which is 5-2 Democratic-majority and has become notorious for partisan rulings, to grant all the Democrats’ requests—and they did on Sep. 17 [2020]. The court went further than expected, granting the Democrats’ deadline extension, approving drop boxes and satellite “election offices” for ballot collection, and even ruling that postmarks could not be used to verify when ballots had been mailed.
In addition, the court removed the Green Party presidential candidate’s name from the state ballot over a technicality, a move that may have shifted Green Party votes to Joe Biden’s camp. In their decision, the justices acknowledged that the new deadline violated state law but claimed that “in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic” such laws could be dismissed.
It got worse. Sensing an opportunity, the Wolf administration pronounced that county officials “are prohibited from rejecting absentee or mail-in ballots based on signature comparison.” On Oct. 23 [2020], not long before Election Day, the court approved this last nail in the coffin of election integrity.
[…]
But on Oct. 28 [2020], the Supreme Court postponed any decision with a 4-4 ruling—excluding newly appointed justice Amy Coney Barrett—that returned the case to its court of origin. At the time, Justice Samuel Alito noted that it is likely “that the state Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution,” opening a possibility that the justices will review the case post-election, with the potential outcome of eliminating thousands of illegal ballots.
On Friday [Nov. 6, 2020], GOP state House Speaker Bryan Cutler, who noted that the election “confusion is a direct result of the court decisions,” called for a full audit before any certification of the results. Cutler also cited Pennsylvania’s 100,000 provisional ballots—cast when a voter’s eligibility is in question—that further indicated problems with the mail-in system.
October 2020: Republicans argued that the U.S. Constitution states the legislature determines election rules, not the courts:
Republican lawmakers argued in a U.S. Supreme Court petition, Article I Section 4 of the Constitution states that the “Time, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof,” subject to the directives of Congress. The Constitution is clear: the Legislature, not courts, determines federal election rules.
Feb. 22, 2021: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear 2020 election-related cases:
The Republican Party of Pennsylvania and several members of the Pennsylvania House and Senate attempted to challenge the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in the U.S. Supreme Court before the election, but, at the time, the justices refused to expedite the case, leaving the petitions for review to proceed under the normal briefing schedule. But following briefing, the court denied the petition on Feb. 22. […]
In his dissent, Thomas explained both the problem with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision and why it was imperative for the U.S. Supreme Court to enter the fray.
“The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the ‘Manner’ of federal elections,” [Justice Clarence] Thomas opened his dissent, citing Article I, § 4 clause 1 and Article II, § 1 of the national Constitution. “Yet both before and after the 2020 election, nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead,” the originalist jurist continued.
January 2022: Pennsylvania court declared no-excuse mail-in voting was unconstitutional:
On Friday, a Pennsylvania court declared the state’s statute authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting was unconstitutional. Within hours, Pennsylvania officials filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court, putting on hold the lower court decision and thereby leaving in place the vote-by-mail option until the state’s high court rules.
Aug. 2, 2022: PA Supreme Court Upholds No-Excuse Mail-In Voting Law in blow to GOP
– “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the state’s law allowing mail-in voting on a strict party-line vote after the lower court ruled in January that it violated the state’s constitution.
– “The state’s mail-in voting law, Act 77, was upheld on a 5-2 decision released Tuesday from the state’s partisan Supreme Court; only two of the judges are Republican.”
– “The case is McLinko v. Pennsylvania, No. J-18A-2022, J-18B-2022, J-18C-2022, J-18D-2022, and J-18E-2022 in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.“
Case Details
Via: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Case: McLinko, D. v. Dept. of State, et al., – Nos. 14, 15, 17, 18 & 19 MAP 2022
Date Posted: August 02, 2022
Opinions:
– Justice Sallie Mundy – Dissenting Opinion
– Justice P. Kevin Brobson – Dissenting Opinion
– Justice Christine Donohue – Majority Opinion
– Justice David Wecht – Concurring Opinion
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