Election security

 

U.S. Supreme Court justice orders Pa. counties to separate, but keep counting, late-arriving mail ballots

In a move that could signal the U.S. Supreme Court is one step closer to intervening in a fight over Pennsylvania’s grace-period for late-arriving mail ballots, Justice Samuel Alito on Friday ordered all counties to keep separate any ballots that came in after Nov. 3 and instructed state officials to explain by Saturday why the court should not step in.

Many, if not all counties, were already complying with his demands.

The order came in response to a state GOP filing earlier in the day which urged once again that the court overturn a ruling by Pennsylvania’s highest court that allowed counties to count ballots received up until 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday — as long as they had been postmarked by Election Day.

The justices had declined an earlier push seeking their intervention, but noted at the time that they might be open to considering the issue down the road.

So, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar had advised counties to segregate — but still count — any mail ballots that came in after Nov. 3 so that if the U.S. Supreme Court were to take up the case they could be easily isolated.

Republicans told the court Friday that Boockvar had been unable to verify that local election boards had been following that advice.

Alito, in his order, said until Friday, the court did not know there was a question over whether counties were complying with Boockvar’s guidance. But he stopped short of granting the GOP’s request that those ballots not be counted at all until the wider court decided whether to weigh in on the issue. Instead, the order instructed counties to count late-arriving ballots separately — something many, if not all, have already been doing.

Alito’s order gave the Department of State until 2 p.m. Saturday to file a response and said he would refer the matter to the wider court.