A Pennsylvania judge ruled in favor of the Trump campaign Thursday, overturning a decision by the Secretary of State that allowed voters 3 extra days to provide proof of identification.
According to state law, voters have up to 6 days after election day to resolve identification issues if needed. This came out to November 9 this year.
Following the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that mail-in ballots may be accepted for an additional three days after Election Day, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar extended the deadline for resolving proof of identification issues for additional 3 days as well, which comes out to today, November 12.
However, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt ruled on Thursday that Boockvar did not possess the statutory authority to extend that deadline, thereby invalidating ballots that arrived between November 9 and November 12.
“[T]he Court concludes that Respondent Kathy Boockvar, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacked statutory authority to issue the November 1, 2020, guidance to Respondents County Boards of Elections insofar as that guidance purported to change the deadline … for certain electors to verify proof of identification,” Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said in a court order.
Leavitt’s decision matches the argument put forth by the Trump campaign, that the move had no basis in Pennsylvania state law, and was therefore unconstitutional.
The court had previously ordered that all ballots arriving between November 9 and November 12 should be segregated. Judge Leavitt’s ruling means that these ballots now may not be counted.
This legal challenge is one of a slew of challenges the Trump campaign intends to bring in Pennsylvania. On Friday, the campaign intends to challenge thousands of ballots already tallied in the state, on the basis that they were allegedly counted despite the fact that they were missing required information.
In addition, the Supreme Court has yet to issue a ruling on whether the three-day extension issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for accepting mail-in ballots was valid or not.
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