Battleground state’s high court rejects GOP challenge to provisional ballot rules

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state must count provisional ballots for voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected or improperly filled out in a 4-3 decision that could provide thousands of voters in the state with a second chance to cast their vote.

The ruling is the latest in a string of defeats for Republicans, who have filed nearly 100 election-related court challenges in recent weeks in what they say are legal challenges aimed at preventing voter fraud through absentee and mail-in ballots. 

Many of them have been filed in swing states considered pivotal for either candidate to win the presidency.

Supporters at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Swensen for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In Pennsylvania, the RNC had appealed a lower court decision that allowed voters who mistakenly sent their mail-in ballots without an inner “secrecy” envelope to cast in-person provisional ballots at their local polling location.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld that decision in a 4-3 vote, siding with a lower court that had ruled that a local election board in Butler County had been wrong this year when they disqualified provisional ballots cast by several residents in the 2024 primary election. 

A voter hands in her mail-in ballot at a Montgomery County services van in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

THE 1.6M VOTERS WHO COULD DETERMINE THE US ELECTION DON’T CURRENTLY RESIDE IN THE COUNTRY

Writing for the majority, Justice Christine Donohue said provisional ballots exist as a “failsafe” for eligible voters in Pennsylvania to protect against disenfranchisement.

The court noted that provisional votes can be counted only after a person’s eligibility to vote and the rejection of their mail-in ballot are confirmed. 

“Counting Electors’ provisional ballots, when their mail ballots are void for failing to use a Secrecy Envelope, is a statutory right,” Donahue wrote, adding that the rule in question is “intended to alleviate potential disenfranchisement for eligible voters.”

The town of Charleroi, Pennsylvania. (Adam Shaw/Fox News Digital)

It is unclear how many residents in Pennsylvania will be impacted by the decision, and the Republican Party did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment.

Still, the decision comes as Democrats have sought to position themselves as the party that supports free and fair elections, seizing on Republican lawsuits as a means of disenfranchising voters.

To wit, they have invested some six figures in a voter registration campaign to help mobilize U.S. residents living abroad. In the U.S., party efforts seek to educate voters in key swing states on how and when to vote.

They also praised the decision in a statement Thursday, with a Democratic Party official and a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign describing the court’s ruling as a rejection of “bogus legal claims.”

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“While Republicans try to block your vote, Democrats are protecting it and standing up for the principle that every eligible voter has a right to make their voice heard, no matter how they vote,” they told Fox News Digital in a joint statement. And this ruling reaffirms that principle.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. 

Provisional ballots are a ‘failsafe’ from disenfranchising voters who made an error when mailing in a ballot, says state Supreme Court justice