Pennsylvania court: Secretary of state lacked authority to change deadline 2 days before Election Day
By: Ronn Blitzer (Fox News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Pennsylvania judge ruled in favor of the Trump campaign Thursday, ordering that the state may not count ballots where the voters needed to provide proof of identification and failed to do so by Nov. 9.
State law said that voters have until six days after the election — this year that was Nov. 9 — to cure problems regarding a lack of proof of identification. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots could be accepted three days after Election Day, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar submitted guidance that said proof of identification could be provided up until Nov. 12, which is six days from the ballot acceptance deadline. That guidance was issued two days before Election Day.
"[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.
READ THE COURT ORDER HERE
This was in line with the Trump campaign's argument, which was that there was no basis in the state's law to extend the identification deadline, and that Boockvar did not have the power to unilaterally change it.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar speaks during a news conference offering updates regarding the counting of ballots in the general election, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The court had previously ordered that all ballots where voters provided proof of identification between Nov. 10 and 12 should be segregated until a ruling was issued determining what should be done with them.
On Thursday, Leavitt ruled that those ballots shall not be counted.
This is one of several legal challenges the Trump campaign is bringing in Pennsylvania. On Friday they are scheduled to have a hearing over thousands of ballots that they claim were improperly counted despite lacking required information.
Additionally, the campaign awaits action from the Supreme Court regarding whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court acted properly in granting the three-day extension for accepting mail-in ballots.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Tags
Who is online
115 visitors
Todays Civics Lesson:
State Legislatures make state election laws!
Issue settled!
So Trump won a non-zero number of his lawsuits.
A win that does not effect the election whatsoever.
This has zero to do with Trump.
oh really? the first ten words of your seed seem to dispute that.
Ya, Really. Regardless of who/how got it to the court, it benefits future elections.
If you think it benefited Trump, please show us how?
If it didn't benefit Trump, why were his personal lawyers suing for it?
You have GOT to be kidding Vic. The fucking lawsuit was FILED by the Trump Campaign. Sheesh.
thank god those days are almost over, for the sake of the country. trumpski getting his vendettas on in the closing days will dig the hole of his legacy, his coming pardons will lower the casket in, and the resulting 50/50 split in the senate due to both activities, with kamala harris having the tie breaking vote, will fill the hole and place the headstone.
But it didn't benefit him. The outcome demonstrated to state legislatures what should be prohibited, namely everything that was in Pelosi's HR 1..(That's right - her top priority was changing election laws for 2020.
But it didn't benefit Trump. It benefited honest elections!
The bad news for lefties is the empty suit takes over in mid January and I'll have a lot of fun with that. I think I know what he's going to produce - Republican majorities in the House and Senate in 2022.
The empty suit received 5.3 million votes more than an incumbent president. In fact, according to Trump Biden was the worst presidential candidate in history. So that makes Trump an even worse candidate.
And the EC was 306 to 232...A landslide.
Reality is a bridge too far for Trump and some of his followers.
Cheers.
Lefties either riot when they lose or gloat when the win. Nothing on the topic as usual.
Cheers.
Good Riddance.
So the ballots were not counted and will not be counted
and won't make any difference in the current vote count.
I'm pretty sure those ballots were also quarantined and shrink wrapped, ie., not counted either.
Today is the twelfth. and you don't think that they couldn't wait to get their hands on those votes and just brushed them aside till later without even STARTING to count? I am sure they are all fatigued to an extent and want to get their "duty" over with.
Each county quarantined them, shrink wrapped them and sent the to Harrisburg, unopened, ie., uncounted.
It has no impact on the ballot totals at all.
Besides, what if they were all votes for Trump?
We'll never know.
That's not the point. You had a Sos clearly overstep her authority and a few here thought she had the right to do it.
Yes, all officials are bound by the law. The law is the law.
Glad this minor issue is addressed.
It isn't minor to the people who voted and now their votes are not counted.
She really screwed them over.
It is a minor issue relevant to the question at hand: who won AZ? Of course any issue, no matter how minor relevant to some greater goal, will be major to some.
But in this case the law is being upheld and following the law seems to be the right thing to do (to me):
Since you seem to take exception to my comment, that logically means you think that the law should NOT have been upheld. On what grounds?
Where did I say that, you assume too much. Anyone who votes in good faith would feel that this is not a minor mistake.
I hope that she is held accountable for her actions and apologizes to those she screwed.
Simple logic. In this case the law was followed and a minor issue (relative to the big picture of who won AZ) was legally resolved. You took issue with my comment which approved of the judge's legal ruling. That logically implies you are against the judge's legal ruling.
So be clear, are you for or against the judge's legal ruling which upheld the law? If you are against it (which your comments strongly imply) then I am asking you why you think the law should NOT be upheld. Are you arguing that the law should NOT be upheld and that all votes should be counted even those that are not legally complete?
Yeah, 'Sunshine', I acknowledged that upfront. About as clear as it gets:
I never said anything of the sort.
Only thing my comment implies is that she screwed the people.
So when you decide to stop your nonsense we can engage, until then toodles.
What is the problem answering my question?
The judge ruled on a matter of law. He ruled in favor of the law. That ruling caused some votes to be deemed illegal and not counted.
Right? You agree with these basic facts?
My original comment agreed with the judge's ruling and deemed this a minor matter since it does not affect who won AZ.
You objected and said that it is not minor to those who votes do not count.
I agreed that it is not minor to them but in the grand scheme it is minor since this does not change anything in the election.
I asked you if you agree with the judge's legal ruling.
Do you? Or do you think the judge should not rule in favor of the law?
Can't believe the Sec of State would simply ignore a statute like that.
I guess that old tweet of hers was the tipoff:
Some have trouble leaving their own feelings out of it!
... especially in the white house.
Especially on the fuckin left
... especially on the hypocritical right, by the defeated, one term, impeached POTUS.
No, by the shit on the left who denied the American people pandemic relief, rioted in our cities, staged that faux impeachment you mentioned, have a devisive former president like Barak Obama who implies America is racist, the same man who corrupted most of government.
in simpler terms, the trumpster circle jerk was aborted before the autocracy got their happy ending.
In simpler terms the moderates got rid of the tweets, but are now going to find out what they bought.
By passing TWO bills that did just that.
Why pretend you give a fuck about cities?
Nope, it was a REAL impeachment, Trump was impeached. FACT.
America IS racist.
Number of Obama Administration indicted ZERO!
Number of Trump Administration indicted 215 and counting.
Oh, here you are!
Didn't you tell us that the PA Secretary of State was acting within the law?
Actually NO Vic. I haven't read about or commented on this specific issue.
Now that I have commented on your seed, how long before you lock it?
Is that for your groupies? I'm not afraid of anyone, least of all you.
Trump wins one eetsy weentsy battle and loses all the wars
Actually, based on the 'he has every right to take it to court' advocates here, the Pennsylvania AG has every right to appeal the ruling. So Trump hasn't 'won' anything...
Doesn't matter, the ballots were never counted in the first place. Yes, it was wrong for the SOS to do.
Well, the way certain politicians were toying with USPS and disparaging USPS, I think they went overboard to avoid disenfranching any voter,
regardless of who those votes were cast for.
It seems there was no problem with the USPS, was there?
I assume we won't be hearing about Russian interference?
It was the issue of the Sos overstepping her authority that almost went unscathed.
I see where they are investigating different POs finding hundreds of ballots, even Miami Dade.
Vast areas of improvement exist.
?
Everyone knew it was going to be challeged and behaved accordingly.
Nothing burger.
Typical dissonance from the left. They spend weeks propagating wild conspiracies about the election being stolen (Trump's stealing mailboxes!) and then, as soon as they've won, decide it's the height of insanity to suggest an election could be stolen. Between the Post Offfice and Amy Comey Barrett, the election was supposedly as good as stolen.
A swing of a tiny percentage of votes and it's Diebold all over again from the left.
And that's what Republicans wanted?
Of course! The election is over.