Federal Appeals Court Steps into PA Election Count, Overrules State Courts

Federal appeals court says undated Pa. mail ballots should be counted, a decision that breaks with state courts and could have immediate impact. So reads the headline. Earlier I reported of the problems with certain ballots unable to be read by machine.

Now we learn that the Federal courts steps into the midst of the counting of ballots with a ruling.

The ruling could open a new fight immediately, as David McCormick and Mehmet Oz head toward a recount.

Pennsylvania mail ballots submitted without a date on the envelope last year should be counted, a federal appeals court said Friday, a ruling that could mean thousands more votes get counted in elections moving forward — starting with this past Tuesday’s primary.

The ruling will also almost certainly reignite the smoldering political fight over undated mail ballots; create new questions and pressure for county elections officials as they continue to count votes from this week’s primary; and create another potential opening for county-by-county legal challenges as the Senate Republican primary heads toward a likely recount.

The full extent of the decision’s impact is unclear, because the court issued a judgment and said an opinion would come later. But based on the order, lawyers from both parties said, the path was suddenly cleared for counties to count the undated mail ballots they had been preparing to reject this election

…But throwing out those votes violates the federal Civil Rights Act, the ACLU argued, because the date isn’t actually used in determining the legitimacy of a vote.

Read more

The handwritten dates are required even though mail-in ballots are usually postmarked and routinely stamped when received by county elections offices.

The trailing candidate, Zac Cohen, lost a state lawsuit over the signature requirement earlier this year and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to take the appeal.

Five voters whose ballots were thrown out in that election, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, then filed a federal lawsuit. They lost at the district court level before the appeals judges overturned that decision on Friday.

Department of State spokeswoman Grace Griffaton said Friday the Pennsylvania elections agency planned to canvass counties to determine how many of those ballots inside envelopes without signatures have been tossed, and officials plan to issue fresh guidance based on the ruling. Source

Then what? Meanwhile there are tens of thousands of mail ballots yet to be counted though as I write this I cannot find any source as to the exact number. And the chain of custody?

Here is an overview of the extent of the ballot issue prior to the election.

Returning to our original problem that Bunker previously posted regarding Lancaster County PA:

PA 21,000 Mail Ballots to be ‘Hand Marked’ Due to Printing Error

A novel approach to correct this was to ask on the local Lancaster TV station for volunteers to come down and replace the ballots unreadable with new marked ballots. The chain of custody was meager as best after hours. There certain was no hurry in completing the process. Ballots were processed from 9 am to 6 pm and last I heard were completed for this county on Saturday. What happened to ballots the other hours is unknown and no one has asked.

The glitch will force election workers to hand-mark fresh ballots, a process expected to take several days. Officials in the county, the state’s sixth most populous, pledged that all the ballots will be counted eventually. But by whom? How about the local candidates where a few votes can make all the difference.

Here is how Lancaster is going.

Just a refresher: PA had Dominion last election when there were “machine cliches” – Wander over to the link below for the Pennsylvania details and more.

Biden Admin Begs Court to Bury Bombshell Report on Dominion Voting Machines

Mentioned during a Fox News interview by host Maria Bartiromo were Nadeam Elshami, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff who last year became a lobbyist for Dominion, and Richard Blum, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, who she said is a significant shareholder in the company.

…….

The company, which has about a third of the voting machine market, according to Bloomberg, has faced scrutiny in the past couple of days with voting problems reported in parts of Michigan and Georgia, although the company and local officials have discounted the idea that the software was to blame.

Dominion has customers in 28 states and Puerto Rico, including all of the battleground states where Trump and his allies are contesting and pinning their hopes on recounts after media outlets called the presidential race for Biden.

cut….(Again, this is PA) – Last election:

Chris Varney, Judge of Elections says they were initially under the impression that it was a problem with all ballots, but then determined it was only a problem with Republican ballots. Varney says he was unaware of which specific precincts were dealing with the same issue, but that this same issue was happening in numerous locations across Fayette County.

The solution provided by Fayette County officials was to collect ballots from voters and store them in the back of voting machines — but not to scan any of them to ensure the process was handled in a fair manner.

We’ve heard different variations of this story ever since November 3, 2020, when voting machines seemed to switch votes from Republicans to Democrats. At the heart of the scandal during the big election were Dominion Voting Machines. Certainly they’re not at the heart of this particular voter “challenges” story as well, right?

The best of the swamp. Just GOP ballots wouldn’t you know? The old “coding error. And PA still has drop boxes..

The very best of the swamp. Indeed.

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