A Tale of Two Pennsylvania Lawsuits
Both parties filed at least one lawsuit in Pennsylvania the other day. They suggest that Trump is seeking to create problems, not voters.
Trump and Republicans sued Bucks County for shutting down early voting (which in Pennsylvania amounts to filling out a mail-in ballot in person) three hours early the other day. As a result, the county was ordered to offer three more days of in-person early voting.
a) Declare that the Bucks County’s actions in turning away voters who sought to apply for a mail-in ballot and receive one in person before the deadline of 5:00 p.m. on October 29, 2024 violated the Pennsylvania Election Code,
b) Order the Bucks’ County Board of Elections to permit any persons who wish to apply for and receive a mail-in ballot to appear at the Elections Bureau office and do so during normal business hours before the close of business on October 30, 2024.
As a number of outlets have reported, Trump used this incident to claim voter fraud. But raising concerns and getting accommodations is, instead, how the system works.
Trump hasn’t complained about another problem in the state.
As Democrats allege in a suit against Erie County, one or two fairly major fuck-ups with their sent mail-in ballots, one stemming from their vendor, and another stemming from the postal service, have led to delays in a significant number of Erie voters getting their absentee ballots. The impact is significant: Erie’s 57% early turnout lags every other county save (gulp) Luzerne. And even though Democrats have returned their ballots at a much higher pace than Republicans — over 62% of Democrats as compared to 52% of Republicans, one of the biggest gaps in the state — there are still 9,000 outstanding Democratic ballots and 6,000 Republican ones.
Republicans may not be complaining because the differential still works out to a 3,000 vote advantage for them, in a bellwether county. Or maybe they’re simply not tracking their votes that closely.
Some of the boys purportedly in charge of Trump’s turnout have just discovered that women are voting at much higher rates than men, which has been evident for weeks.
In any case, the local Dems in Erie simply taking this in stride, finding a way to get their votes counted.
During an Oct. 24 public meeting of the Board of Elections, Sam Talarico, the head of the local Democratic Party, said his “only concern is about people who have not received their mail-in ballots yet. I’m one of them.”
In an interview on Wednesday, he said he had finally received his ballot on Monday and returned it the next day.
“I’m a little bit concerned, but I do know the county is doing everything they can to rectify the situation,” he said.
There’s a hearing on the Erie lawsuit today (though the most interesting Pennsylvania hearing will be the hearing in Philadelophia DA Larry Krasner’s effort to enjoin Elon Musk’s million dollar giveaways under Pennsylvania’s lottery law, for which Judge Angelo Foglietta ordered Elon Musk’s personal attendance).
Until then, it appears that Pennsylvania’s Democrats are simply going to work to turn out every single vote.