Pennsylvania court strikes down no-excuse mail voting law - CBS News
By: Adam Brewster (CBSPolitics)
Disenfranchising Democrat couch potatoes
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Adam Brewster
January 28, 2022 / 12:08 PM / CBS News
A Pennsylvania court on Friday struck down Act 77, the law that established no-excuse mail voting in Pennsylvania, saying it violated the state Constitution.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court said the state's constitution requires votes to be cast in-person unless voters meet certain requirements. The ruling will likely be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which leans Democratic.
Fourteen Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives sued last year, arguing that the law was unconstitutional. Eleven of those GOP lawmakers voted for Act 77 in 2019.
In its decision, the court noted that the law has expanded access to the ballot, but the majority said that any changes to mail voting laws would require a constitutional amendment.
In this November 4, 2020, file photo, Chester County election workers process mail-in and absentee ballots for the 2020 general election in the United States at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Matt Slocum / AP
"No-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient and has been used four times in the history of Pennsylvania," wrote Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, a Republican. "Approximately 1.38 million voters have expressed their interest in voting by mail permanently. If presented to the people, a constitutional amendment…is likely to be adopted. But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people and adopted into our fundamental law before legislation authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting can 'be placed upon our statute books.'"
The court's three Republicans ruled that the law was unconstitutional, while the two Democrats dissented.
In a statement, the Pennsylvania Department of State said it "disagrees with today's ruling and is working to file an immediate appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court."
Act 77 was passed in 2019 with bipartisan support, including leading Republicans. In 2020, the first general election in which the law was in effect, 2.6 million Pennsylvanians voted by mail.
Some conservatives in the state turned against the law after President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania, claiming the expanded access to mail ballots cost former President Donald Trump the state. Republicans have blasted previous court decisions about the law and criticized the Pennsylvania executive branch's implementation of the law.
Republican State Senator Doug Mastriano, who voted for Act 77 in 2019, introduced a bill in November 2021 to repeal certain provisions of the law, including eliminating no-excuse mail voting. Mastriano is also running for governor in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Senate minority leader Jay Costa, a Democrat, said he is hopeful that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will reverse the decision.
"Act 77 was a bipartisan, bicameral achievement that protected & improved access to the ballot box. It must be protected," Costa tweeted. "I do not believe that mail in voting is unconstitutional, and there were not constitutional concerns brought up when the bill passed nearly unanimously in '19."
In addition to establishing no-excuse mail voting, the law also created a permanent mail voting list, gave Pennsylvanians an extra 15 days to register to vote and extended the deadline for returning mail ballots.
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Well I'm sure this is going to become a yo yo............once it gets to the SC of PA and then.........on to DC
I wouldn’t think so. There would need to be a federal question for the Court to address. The Court doesn’t get to tell a state how to interpret its own laws. If this were specifically about a federal election, then yeah, the Court could address it, but this seems to be an internal question on the law itself relative to the state constitution. I doubt it would go past the Pennsylvania Supremes.
You may be right.
Shameless, uninformed commentary.
The Pennsylvania House is majority Republican 111 - 93, The House vote was 138 to 61in favor of SB421.
In the Senate, one Dem crossed over to vote with the GOP 30 - 20.
Republican Bill, signed by a Dem governor in exchange for retiring the ancient mechanical machines
and eliminating the possiblilty of straight party voting.
I fail to see how 14 Republicans who sued a Republican law that most of them voted for
can claim victory over the Dem's for something they themselves created believing it was legal.
Which makes the derogatory partisan comments ridiculous at best.
more info at comment # 7
I'm pretty sure this isn't what Biden's "voting" bill aims to do.
The voting rights bill is actually a left-wing federal takeover of elections achieved by circumventing the US Constitution. Anyone who was forced to "vote by mail due to Covid" and denied access to casting an in-person vote in 2020 understands this.
This is indeed good news! It seems that Biden might have won Pennsylvania due to votes cast in an unconstitutional manner.
I dare you to prove that when the recount proved otherwise. Do you ever get tired of being proven to be a liar?
If the mail in voting that they used was unconstitutional then every single mail in vote that was cast in the manner deemed unconstitutional would thus be an invalid vote not to be counted.
Since I live 50 miles (round trip) from my designated polling place, voting by mail is a very good thing. It also gives me plenty of time to research candidate qualifications and policies for downstream positions that I don't know.
Hello, cjcold - In my opinion, it makes sense for you, due to distance, to request an absentee ballot. But, that's not what happened in 2020. That year, everyone, "due to Covid", received an absentee ballot even though they didn't request one.
Requesting an absentee ballot has existed since I started voting decades ago, but unrequested mandatory universal mail-in voting ballots began in 2020, and to date, there's been no scientific, medical data to support the necessity for it.
It doesn't matter... The election has been certified and done... There is no going back...
Mail-in voting was not unconstitutional. JFC.
Do you need me to explain what ex post facto means?
I wonder if anyone is arguing what it means to be “in-person.”
In-person means exactly that. Ride your horse, walk, drive, whatever ... to your assigned voting location and cast your ballot.
Until November 2020, I voted in-person at my designated location for every election (local, county, state, federal) for decades. In 2020, my state mandated that everyone had to cast their votes via universal, unrequested mail-in ballots that were delivered to our mailboxes and we had to drop them off at specified locations that weren't guarded. Many of those drop-boxes were broken into, so many voters questioned if their vote was counted/registered. The state did have an online "tracking" system, but it was always broken so no one could verify their votes.
Links?
Sure. In 4.1 I forgot to say that USPS mailboxes were also tampered with. I hope that 3 links are enough.
So, two articles about the same incidents with Post office drop boxes in Richmond and Henrico that prove nothing
and one article about suspected/probable arson in Los Angeles in an actual ballot drop box.
So one drop box, not many.
Got it.
I'm certainly not surprised that my links wouldn't be enough to please you. You can look for the others on your own if you wish. The two articles about VA mention several locations ... not just one.
I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.
This isn't rocket science. Fix the issue, keep what works for the masses of people we SAY we want to have FREEDOM and LIBERTY to vote. Do WHAT WORKS! Put cameras on dropboxes. Make it a state or federal offense (like tampering with mail boxes) to tamper with drop boxes. Just stop with the 'excuses' for why liberty and freedom can't COPE!
Isn't Jasper2529 among the choir-members for greater liberties and freedoms?
You must have me confused with someone else, CB. I haven't made 'excuses' for anything.
It's time to put up. Choose greater liberty and freedom or 'bust.'
What on Earth are you talking about, and why have you TWICE made strange comments to me which have accused me of not standing up for liberty and freedom? Wow!!
Mail boxes are vandalized all the time.
They are not Ballot Drop Boxes.
Why can you never admit that you were wrong?
Do you all even bother to read what you all share with this site? I am not going through the minutia of pointing out every 'angle' of so-called conservative points of viwe with you: Are you a member of the party that proclaims its 'rights' to more liberty and freedom or not?! Do you even read or agree with what other conservatives on this site write?
OK, if you say so.
Yes, I know. However, in 2020 voters put their ballots in either Ballot Drop Boxes or took them to US Post Offices. I handed mine to a postal worker inside a post office to ensure that it would get to the proper location.
Time to drop it, SP, because that question is dangerously close to a personal attack.
I'm in favor of no-excuse mail-in ballots myself. I have a leg problem which causes me a good deal of pain to stand for a long time so I've been voting by mail for years. So long as the state has a system set up to properly vet the voter and the ballet each time I don't see any issues. For myself I would like to see it expanded in all states, but I admit I don't have those super powers to force any of that thru.
For PA, I would say amend the state constitution and allow this to happen.
Snuffy, I don't have a problem with no-excuse either. What I DO have a problem with is the federal and state governments suddenly mailing ballots to everyone (citizen or not) and mandating that everyone in the US must vote by mail without being vetted as US citizens.
You have a valid medical reason for absentee voting.
Agreed. The mass mailing of ballots should never be done, there should be a system where someone first has to request it and go thru the process to be properly vetted so that the state can confirm the ballot when it comes back in. And the states should be required to keep their voting rolls clean, there's no excuse to allow years of missed elections for individuals to still be on the voting rolls.
There are a couple of states that have set up 100% mail-in voting. But they built the system to manage it, it wasn't just head down to the post office and drop several million ballots in the mail. If the federal government can mandate 100% mail-in voting for all citizens in the country then there needs to be a system built and managed by the individual states to properly vet the voters. I do agree with you in that, I am however in favor of all states moving to set up a system that would allow their citizens to take advantage of it.
What I do not get is the OUTRAGEOUS 'mess' that keeps coming up! (I am so frustrated with these types of discussions I can't even phrase that part right!)
I mean we pay these people to fix, establish, and maintain QUALITY voting standards and practices. Thus, rendering 'generic' complaints about the system void before they are leveled. There are only so many ways to 'skin a cat' the proverb goes. Just fix it and leave it alone! Of course, their will be the needed 'adjustments' for grand shifts like a pandemic-but all this angst is just damn weird!
Snuffy! Thank you for being balanced to your personal concern and for speaking up for the system as a whole! We need good voting practices that are inclusive of real issues people are having. I want to vote and I want you to vote and I want my 'frenemies' to vote, because I want a relatively healthy voting experience!
IMO, this continues because there is just too much money and power in politics. We have two highly partisan political parties that are doing all they can to maintain their power in order to maintain their grip on the money supply. We may pay these people to fix the standards and practices, but we have little control over them outside of the ballot so they know they can keep their allegiance to their political party first. all they really need to do is say a few words before the election and most if forgiven as most (last I read, something like 96%) get re-elected.
Perhaps if we had an honest press involved more could be done. But the press is like most other groups primarily motivated by money. Working their bias to keep their readership engaged and "clicking" is what generates the most money so we won't get any help in that regard. It's the world we live in and I doubt if we will see any real change in our lifetimes.
Yes, it is clear that money and power corrupts. . . but, we do need to keep the good politicians in seats and the good media people in seats. . . . Just have to keep pushing the damn IDIOTS and 'DIRTY DOGS' all the way out. Because if you give them a 'bone' - they never leave good people alone! In some ways, this is worse than the criminal 'enterprises' which we rarely hear from publicly.
Oh well, bottom line: humanity is the only pool we have to choose and put into office. And it is essential we have a governing 'authority.'
And there lies the crux of the problem, WHO decides what is a good politician and a good media talking head?
How bout we take the example right off the board here....
In my state I had to request mail in and provide proofs of residence along with photo IDs.
Seemed pretty secure to me.
Since my mailfolk are friends (everybody knows everybody out here), No worries.
(But just to be on the safe side I always mail my ballot from the single PO box in town).
We choose people of good hearts, integrity (consistency), and team-players. People who do not choose alternative narratives over proper narratives-just to be contrary and 'off-beat' and selfish and seeking sordid gain. No one can save us in this country, but. . . us.
Choose to hear from people who support holding our mutually shared UNION together. See and admonish schemers and "deniers" of fact, once discovered, who want to kill off this marriage of states.
We, conservatives and liberals, will be nothing apart. We're grow up (vertically) or ultimately, go down (horizontally). As we have demonstrated to the world, we are its "everything" together. There is wisdom in those words if we can just remember it.
Ok, In my opinion Rand Paul embodies all those ideals... But there are any number of people on the board that I believe would include you, that believes the opposite...
Who's right? Who's wrong? The inability to accept that the other side may have some value is anathema to the current political ideals coursing thru the nations veins right now... But then, some of the ideals espoused by the each of other sides, really stretch the bounds of sanity...
Well, as my old pappy 'C Bab' used to say before stepping out into the fast lane, "Stop pissing in the water and it will come clean on its own." Tell those, indulgent 'glory hounds' across the country to wake up to the new 'look of things' for 2022. The REFRESH." Time out for all dumb shit and silly performers. Time to get back to loving all people of good-will: Conservative and Liberal alike.
This political 'warfare' ought to end right here and now!
Actually, here in Washington, it is... Just trot right down the the post office and drop it in the slot or hand it to your mail carrier...
WE had a system that was full proof, problem is you had to get up off your ass, go to your polling place, show your id which was checked again voting rolls, and flip the switches and pull the lever... Results were reported instantaneously...
No recounts, no mailings, no paper ballots.. (except for those who had a verifiable reason they couldn't make to a polling place, they could get a paper ballot if they asked and verified the need)
Acceptance of other peoples rights to be and believe what they want is the key... but then Deplorable people don't have that right...
I am not going to exacerbate this by furthering that comment. Peace.
when I posted that, I meant it was the states who would just trot down and mail off several million ballots to voters. sorry for the confusion.
Doesn't take long to get to the crux of the issue... Peace as well...
I will say this much: We, conservatives and liberals are in a 'union' together. Bound by land. We do not have the luxury to just up and move away. Therefore, it benefits both groups to meet in the middle and remember what we are together. Stop 'souring' on each other. Stop 'seeing other people' and lying to each other about doing so. Do the hard work of making this perpetual marriage work (again). "Separation" ended.
Word is out: When our union works properly: Magic sparks happens!
Now this is something we can agree on 100%
When we start listening to each other and respecting each other, in the framework of this nation, YES magic happens...
That's why millions of people WANT to come here in any way they can...
But the State of Washington actually does exactly that, mails millions of ballots to every registered voter every year... No postage required to mail them back.... For the last 22 years...
Emphatically. Let's tack back to the Center, everybody!
From The Article:
You cannot make this shit up.
Apparently this was the logic for passing the Bill in 2019. The Bill was amended again in 2020.
The vote of 138- 61 was bipartisan in a House controlled by the Republicans 110 -93
The senate Bill was 30 - 20 along party lines with 1 Dem voting with the Republican majority.
Now 3 of them convinced 11 others who voted for it that it was unconstitutional?
2019 Act 77 - PA General Assembly (state.pa.us)
So in essence this is Republicans suing a Republican amendment and declaring it a great victory over the Dems?
The PA constitution has been amended by voters 49 times, most recently in 2021.
The PA Supremes now have it.
Seems like a slam dunk should the court force the issue to a vote.
Democrats love mail-in voting... Democrats love paper ballots... Democrats love computer tallying of votes...
The most insecure voting system ever invented...
And democrats love it....
Well, it was bound to happen. . . the new 'stuff' arrived (already). Welcome to the 'space-age.' We have superfast computers and AI now. Shame not to 'trust' it to make life easier. Live it or 'bust.' (Just how long do you suppose we can hand count 100 of millions of votes timely and efficiently?)
You know what small town America? You will just have to trust that when you can't find a problem, the system works! But if you insist on trying to manipulate the system to your values. . . it simply won't work! We are a 'big' country now with millions on top of millions of eligible voters using the franchise!
Didn't need to... We had an electro mechanical voting system that was both instant and untraceable.... And uncorruptable... It didn't use paper ballots nor computers and didn't involve any need for recounting anything...
And it worked, for over 100 years, results were reported almost instantly... By the time election night was over you KNEW who won....
This system, we are still counting ballots a week after the election in some counties here in Washington....
What can I say. If voting standards and practices are what we can't get right in this country, what hope is there for us. Pack it up, we're done as a union. We simply can't cope with progress (growth and development).
Progress for progress's sake is sometimes the wrong way to go with disastrous results... When they were debating the voting system there were any number of computer voting systems offered up ALL of them could not pass security requirements set up 100 years earlier... Demonstrably had huge security holes in them...
What happened was the push for more voters, how to get them up off their asses to exercise their rights... Problem is you can't FORCE someone to exercise their rights they must WANT to......
Paper ballots create so many security holes not the least is those unsecure computers used to count them... Then there is the issue of boxes of ballots mysteriously appearing from no where... (actually happened in Washington)
They did away with paper ballots cause stuffing the ballot box is just too easy.... Corrupting a computer is just too easy...
But that's what voting is based upon today... Is it any wonder that people don't trust elections anymore?
We can not reasonably ask people to expose themselves to controversial policies of unmasking and hours long lines simply to cast a vote. Especially, when there is a solution. More sets of votes in history. 'Evolution' in voting is calling for all of us to come and WANT it.
We SAY we want more people to vote, we SAY we want max freedoms and liberties for the masses, but look what happens as soon as voting historical numbers are reached? Conservatives balk. That's morally wrong. It's calling good, bad.
Conservative aren't balking, all we are demanding is good sense, make sure that real CITIZENS are voting, not just any person that can be sneaked across the border and distributed all over the nation...
We can handle what the real citizen of this nation decide, no problem...
Admittedly, one or two persons could sneak and vote in our elections, but such minuscule changes do not alter outcomes. For that level of activity, changing outcomes, it would leave EVIDENCE—bright, *SPARKLING,* evidence that can be delivered to courts. Do you agree? We do not have any of that!
We used to be (sad I have to speak in the past tense) the envy of third world countries, who spoke of us as the model of civility, decency, and most importantly fair elections. They gazed UP at us, "Big Brother, USA". Now look at us, we are demoralizing third world nations, because apparently we can't hold fair and free elections:
We can build complex computer systems and AI and nuclear weapons and space ships, but voting is what is going to 'break' us. It's too 'hard.' /s
We should apologize to the third world for wasting its time!
The problems with paper ballots are obvious, but still in use.
Thee Myers Automatic Booth was introduced in 1892
By the 60's 50% of all votes were on mechanical machines
By 1996 that was down to 20% due to attrition.
The PA bill in question assured the discontinuation of these refrigerator sized monsters.
NYC kept theirs in storage and used them once in 2010.
Not sure what happened to Philadelphias thousands of machines.
Not a democrat but am curious as to what you would suggest as an alternative.
Easy, back to an electro mechanical system that was fool proof and proved to be untamperable for 120 years... And gave almost instant results...
Yes, improve the machinery of course, but a closed system like we had, that has no outside connections, and had absolute proof of right to vote embedded within it, was the best thing anyone could have... Hard to argue with perfection...
Again this was a GOP bill that eliminated straight ticket voting and the electro mechanical dinosaur voting
machines that allowed that practice in favor of "computer monitor" voting systems.
They got what they asked for.
Yes, the machine gave the option of voting a "Straight Ticket" by flipping one lever or Individual Candidate Voting by flipping individual levers.... Choice was left up to the voter as to what he/she wanted to do when those curtains closed... And there was no way for either party to tell how anyone voted when the curtains opened...
And that is what the political parties hated about those ancient machines, they couldn't track the demographics of the voters...
Complete anonymity... Paper ballots do not allow for that at all... ESPECIALLY when the ballot has to be tracked to the signed envelope before counting.... Then, when they are counted, the ballots are separated from the envelopes... ANYONE can slip a bin of ballots into the line of ballots waiting to be counted...
Not saying anyone has, not even saying it has been done, just saying it's possible... (some people claim it has, and allowing for the mysterious box of unknown ballots in the 2004 election here)
Heck here in the State of Washington you don't even need a ballot anymore, a napkin will suffice as long as it shows the supposed voters supposed intent... That's the law... They get counted...
I only vote in the midterms and nationals, other than that our ballots go in the trash... There's no point to it... And I'm really getting to the point where I doubt it is worth it on a national level as well... If we go to complete paper ballots nationally there will no longer be fair an open elections in this nation...
Of course we live in a state where the democrats and republicans got together and sued the electorate to prevent anyone else from running on any ballot...
The only citizen that counts in Washington is a democrat one... And the republicans go along with that...
So what's the point...
So you want a system that is basically a system where they couldn't tell who voted for who, or they couldn't tell who cast what vote....
Other than announcing your last name and party when verifying you are still on the rolls...
Conspiracy 101? in front of all the poll watchers from both parties?
Sounds like something you should be working on.
It was a Republican law passed in a state in which the GOP has a firm majority in the House & Senate.
Your comment, like JJ's "Disenfranchising Democrat couch potatoes"
Why engage in embarrassing partisan parroting?
What about all the rest of them? There are 49 other states... I'm sure the republicans forced it through in the democrat states as well correct?
So much for partisan parroting...
Wow, you've stooped to whataboutisms?
The seed is about the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law passed overwhelmingly by a Republican Senate
and a bipartisan House with 35 Dems agreeing and 61 Dems saying no.
Nothing to do with the other 30 states that encourage mail in ballots,
and certainly not a Republican "victory" over the Democrats.