Last week, vote-by-mail in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania received a stay of execution.
On Tuesday morning, the state Supreme Court will have oral arguments about its reinstatement or abolition.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court had declared that mail-in ballots are unconstitutional, citing that Act 77 – the legislation that brought no-excuse voting to the masses – should have been placed on the ballot as a constitutional amendment question.
The administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf asked the Supreme Court last week to keep the law intact during the litigation, arguing that stopping mail-in voting ahead of the spring primary season “would, if anything, only exacerbate voter confusion and the danger of disenfranchisement.”
The state’s high court overturned the Commonwealth Court decision and will hear oral arguments today regarding the legal challenges to the current law.
“This Court has generally, but not always, sided with voters and against restrictions on their ability to cast an effective ballot,” said Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia attorney specializing in political law. “I certainly hope that they extinguish these last embers of Trump-inspired efforts to prevent Pennsylvanians from choosing to vote safely and securely from home.”
No-excuse mail-in voting has been more popular among Democrats than Republicans. Many GOP legislators in the General Assembly who voted to adopt the 2019 law now oppose it, including 11 of the plaintiffs in the present challenge.
Since mail-in ballots were first made available by historic bipartisan legislation, more than 4.7 million of these ballots have been cast by Pennsylvania voters, according to the Department of State.
You can watch the livestream of the oral arguments here.
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6 Responses
The only time i have ever got a receipt for my vote was during mail in ballot. The work environment of today promotes the viability of this process . There is no normal day or work shift demographics in this world today. We do most of our business on line ,pay our bills by mail ,etc . Who is to say the person/people that are running polling places are anymore legitimately honest than the people who count votes at courthouse.My local township polling is run by flag flying Qanon folks for real .I feel safe taking my mail in ballot in person to courthouse. Voting is a privilege that should not be controlled by any party or religion or we have failed as a country . God Bless this United states
Vote by mail always results in cheating. Period. What we need is voter ID and signature verification, not mail-in voting without safeguards. Our election system is at stake, and it must be fixed before 2024.
Prove it! And not just by repeating the former windbag’s lies.
The future is Vote by Mail. Setting up precinct locations twice a year is outdated and finding enough people to serve as the precinct board of election is becoming difficult, especially in the rural areas. Much better is using modern technology to mail out ballots OR even better – online voting verified by a finger print and capturing a photo of the person voting the online ballot.
vote by mail is the Devil!
The devil is misleading voters that something is fraudulent when it is doing a lot of good. Encouraging democracy when we see the evil Putin is doing to CRUSH the democratic process should inspire Americans to encourage voting (the foundation of democracy)at home.