Keystone Today

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state’s “no excuse” mail-in voting law would remain in place as it weighs a Jan. 28 Commonwealth Court ruling that overturned the 2-year-old law, Act 77, and ordered it to expire in two weeks.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, appealed the lower court ruling to the Supreme Court and asked the court to keep the law in place during the litigation to avoid “voter confusion and disenfranchisement.” Five judges on the court are Democrats.

When asked about the Supreme Court’s order, a spokesman for Senate President Jake Corman (R-Centre), a candidate for governor, reiterated Corman’s intention to introduce sweeping election reform legislation, including voter ID, a ban on private money underwriting the cost of managing election, and an end to straight party voting.

An end to straight-party voting was what Republican legislative leaders, who preside over majorities in both houses, received in the 2019 legislation from Wolf in exchange for ending restrictions on mail ballots.

But the Commonwealth Court ruled in its Jan. 28 decision that a constitutional amendment was needed to end restrictions on mail voting. Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution contains an in-person voting requirement.

Corman supported the Commonwealth Court ruling citing the way the Pennsylvania Department of State implemented Act 77, “especially the double standard created by the removal of key mail-in ballot security measures in lead-up to the 2020 election. After what occurred in the 2020 and 2021 elections, I have no confidence in the no-excuse mail in ballot provisions.”

Last June, the General Assembly sent Wolf an election reform bill, House Bill 1300, similar to what Corman says he plans to introduce. The governor vetoed it.

Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General and national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, said in a recent statement that the Pennsylvania litigation over mail ballots and a ruling by a county judge in Wisconsin that outlawed drop boxes “demonstrate the reasonableness of the beliefs of many American voters who feel disenfranchised, lacking confidence that every legal vote is being counted fairly and openly in elections that are secure, transparent, and accountable.”

Many of the moves by Pennsylvania Republicans to change state election laws followed former President Donald Trump's unfounded claims that he lost the 2020 election due to massive voter fraud. Trump lost Pennsylvania to President Joe Biden by about 80,000 votes after carrying the state in 2016.