Republicans challenge mail-in voting law anew

HARRISBURG » Republicans have sued again in an attempt to throw out Pennsylvania’s broad mail-in voting law, even as the state’s highest court considers a separate lawsuit aimed at wiping out a law that lost favor with Republicans after former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud.

It is the latest fight over voting laws in a political battleground state. The lawsuit comes barely two months before voters can send in mail-in ballots in the fall election featuring high-profile contests for governor and the U.S. Senate.

The suit, filed Wednesday in the Commonwealth Court by 14 state Republican lawmakers, contends that the court must invalidate the law because of a provision written into it that says it is “void” if any of its requirements are struck down in court.

The lawsuit says the “non-severability” provision was triggered in a May 20 decision by a panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerning mail-in ballots in a Lehigh County judicial race in November.

The ballots in question lacked handwritten dates on the return envelopes, as required in the law.

In the decision, the panel found that a handwritten date has no bearing on a voter’s eligibility and said it would violate voters’ civil rights to throw out their ballots in that election simply because they lacked a handwritten date.

The panel pointed out that ballots with incorrect dates had been counted. An appeal by the Republican candidate in the race is pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration declined to comment on the lawsuit.

However, it separately wrote in a response to a state lawmaker’s query Wednesday that the federal appeals court decision did not trigger the non-severability provision.