The U.S. Supreme Court denied the Republican National Committee’s bid to prevent Pennsylvania voters from casting an in-person ballot after their previous mail-in ballot had been ruled ineligible, the Hill reported on Friday.
In November just prior to Election Day, the Supreme Court had left in place Pennsylvania’s highest court’s 4-3 ruling that election boards must count provisional ballots requested by voters when their mail-in ballots had been deemed invalid.
The ruling stood despite a state law saying such votes “shall not be counted” if the mail ballot was not received on time. The RNC had argued that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unconstitutionally usurped the power of the state’s legislature by going against written law.
While President Donald Trump ended up winning Pennsylvania in the general election, the narrow margin of victory in light of the court’s ruling presupposed further challenges to the state’s election integrity by the RNC. The GOP had hoped the Supreme Court would view the case as a wider challenge to rein in what they viewed as too much power within state courts over elections.
The high court had previously rejected the argument in the 2022 Moore v. Harper decision which stated the Elections Clause gives state legislatures the authority to set federal election rules, and not other areas of state government such as courts.
In its February filing, the RNC’s attorneys wrote, “The case presents an ideal vehicle for the Court to fulfill Moore’s promised enforcement of the Elections and Electors Clauses.”
Jones Day, the firm representing the RNC, wrote in their petition, “Failure to correct the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s indefensible distortion of the General Assembly’s laws would effectively do just that by sending a strong message that judicial review under the Elections and Electors Clauses is illusory. The result would directly contravene the Constitution.”
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