Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania that lack accurate dates on their return envelopes can be discarded following a ruling by the state Supreme Court on Friday which may have significant implications for the 2024 election. The higher court reversed a lower court decision that had deemed the mandate unenforceable, ruling that the lower court should not have addressed the issue without involving election boards from all 67 counties. The case was initially brought by left-leaning groups who only sued the election boards in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties, the state’s two most populous regions.
Just two weeks ago, the Commonwealth Court had suspended the enforcement of date verification on mail-in ballots. However, with the recent high court ruling, thousands of ballots in this critical swing state could be invalidated if their return envelopes contain inaccurate dates in a massive election integrity win that the campaign of former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are hailing. They note that the 4-3 ruling is likely to affect Democrat voters the most, as Democrats are far more likely to vote by mail in the Keystone State.
The RNC issued a statement praising the decision as a big win for election confidence. “This is a huge win to protect the vote in Pennsylvania that will secure commonsense mail ballot safeguards and help voters cast their ballots with confidence. The Keystone State will be absolutely critical in this election, and the Supreme Court has decided a major victory for election integrity,” RNC Michael Whatley said in a joint statement with RNC co-chair Lara Trump.
The situation might not be fully resolved yet, as attorneys for the plaintiffs have suggested that further legal action could be forthcoming to ensure that mail-in ballots with inaccurate date information are still counted. “Thousands of voters are at risk of having their ballots rejected in November for making a meaningless mistake,” said Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the left-wing Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia. She urged voters to “carefully read and follow the instructions for submitting a mail-in ballot to reduce the number of ballots being rejected for trivial paperwork errors.”
U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, meanwhile, is questioning the Biden administration’s reported job creation numbers, suggesting they might be a form of election interference. The Kansas Republican has raised concerns about the consistently inflated job figures released by the Biden-Harris administration, accusing them of manipulating data during an election year. Marshall discussed the issue with Fox Business host Elizabeth MacDonald on “The Evening Edit” Tuesday, highlighting discrepancies in the reported numbers and how they have appeared to be “way off.”
“You’ve also been lead leading the charge demanding answers on why the government has been revising down out of 14 of the last 20 months the U.S. jobs numbers, that they’ve been inflated and they look better than they may be,” MacDonald said. “What are you finding?” The Kansas Republican responded: “I think this is another example of election interference.”
“There’s consistent bad numbers coming out of Washington D.C. This is one more example why Americans don’t trust the federal government,” he added, contending that “we need to get the Department of Labor in front of us” to explain “why these numbers are so far off. It’s almost statistically impossible to be off by 30 percent. This hasn’t happened in decades. This close to the election, it seems like election interference.”
Marshall was joined by Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC), Rick Scott (R-FL.), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) in a letter to Department of Labor Deputy Secretary Julie Su asking about the “methodology in estimating job numbers.” A press release issued by the senator’s office argues that there is an effort to be “seemingly cooking the books to boost public support for the Biden-Harris Administrations.”
“There were multiple instances over the last year in which news outlets reported that the job market was ‘strong,’ ‘red-hot,’ or ‘sizzling,’ to name a few. News outlets took initial BLS data at face value, concluding that the job market was strong,” the letter stated before pointing out the multiple downward jobs revisions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) over the last two years.
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.