The Republican National Committee has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision requiring election officials to count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail ballots were rejected for lacking a secrecy envelope.
This emergency request marks the second 2024 election-related case brought to the high court on Monday; earlier, Virginia officials filed a separate case to remove around 1,600 alleged noncitizens from state voter rolls.
These filings come just over a week before Election Day, with millions of Americans already casting ballots through early in-person or mail voting. Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, has processed over 2 million mail ballot requests, with around 1.4 million already returned, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
Republicans argue that if the Pennsylvania ruling stands, it could lead to “tens of thousands” of provisional votes being counted. They note that during the 2020 election, when many states eased mail voting rules due to COVID-19, roughly 1% of Pennsylvania’s mail ballots were rejected for lacking secrecy envelopes, according to an MIT Election Data and Science Lab analysis. The GOP further requested that, if the Supreme Court does not issue a full stay, provisional ballots cast by voters with defective mail ballots be set aside and tallied separately until the legal dispute is resolved.
Republican attorneys emphasized the high stakes, saying, “This case is of paramount public importance, potentially affecting tens of thousands of votes in a state which many anticipate could be decisive in control of the U.S. Senate or even the 2024 presidential election.”
The Pennsylvania case originates from an April primary, in which two Butler County voters’ mail ballots were deemed invalid for lacking secrecy envelopes. The Butler County Election Board advised the voters to cast provisional ballots during in-person voting, which were subsequently not counted. After a state trial court rejected the voters’ lawsuit, arguing that the election code did not allow provisional ballots in such cases, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the decision in a narrow 4-3 ruling, mandating that counties count provisional ballots for voters whose mail ballots are rejected due to missing secrecy envelopes.
Following the ruling, the Pennsylvania Department of State issued guidance allowing provisional ballots under these conditions. Republicans have urged the Supreme Court to intervene, claiming that the Pennsylvania court’s ruling contravenes the election code and disrupts established mail voting rules so close to Election Day.
