First Abbott loses in Texas on his transparent voter suppression efforts to allow just one ballot drop off box for each county, now the GOP’s “Integrity Panel” is not happening and Trump’s legal challenges in Pennsylvania were rebuffed by a federal judge he himself appointed. And, to boot, that judge was critical, almost mocking, of Trump’s team for these challenges to Pennsylvania voting rights.
Pennsylvania House Republicans Drop Plans To Set Up ‘Election Integrity’ Panel
House Republicans in Pennsylvania are dropping plans to fast-track an 11th-hour effort to set up a Republican-majority election panel with subpoena power, officials said Friday, amid accusations that it was an effort to steal the election.
In an email to House Republicans, Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, said “the muddied waters and misunderstanding” about the intent of the Select Committee on Election Integrity made it clear “this is the wrong time to run the proposal.”
In a previous article one of the more moderate members of the GOP in Pennsylvania had voiced strong objections to this “integrity panel” and had stated that aside from himself he already knows of 12 other Republicans poised to vote against it. That knowledge likely prompted those who came up with the idea for this panel to drop it, it wasn’t clear that they would even have the votes for it in the full House.
Also happened today:
Federal judge in Pennsylvania denies Trump campaign voting policy challenges in major ruling
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has denied the Trump campaign and Republican Party's bid to make ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania unconstitutional, in a resounding defeat for the campaign's challenges to voting policy in a key battleground state.
Judge Nicholas Ranjan of the Western District of Pennsylvania court on Saturday also refused to throw out policies in Pennsylvania allowing signatures on mail-in ballots to not strictly match the voters' signature on file with the state and requiring poll workers to live in the county where they will work on Election Day.
He also rejected Republicans' fears of voter fraud, saying it's possible but not proven likely.
"While Plaintiffs may not need to prove actual voter fraud, they must at least prove that such fraud is 'certainly impending.' They haven't met that burden. At most, they have pieced together a sequence of uncertain assumptions," Ranjan wrote in the 138-page opinion.
What this ruling does:
- The ballot drop boxes that are already in the counties may remain, and more mail-in-ballot drop boxes may be installed as deemed necessary by the Secretary of State.
- Ballots won’t be thrown out because the signature does not exactly match what is on file
- Poll workers must live in the county, they can’t be from anywhere else (this is to prevent Trump from installing out-of-state poll watchers.)
This ruling also pre-empts possible future shenanigans in the state where Trump may try to declare wholesale that mail-in-ballots are rife with fraud. Proof is needed that fraud is impending. Remember, this is a federal judge appointed by Trump himself. I liked the dry “At most, they have pieced together a sequence of uncertain assumptions.” In other words, the whole thing is a bunch of malarkey.
Ranjan, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, noted that Pennsylvania's state officials and state Supreme Court settled many of questions of voting already for the November election.
"The Court finds that the election regulations put in place by the General Assembly and implemented by Defendants do not significantly burden any right to vote. They are rational. They further important state interests. They align with the Commonwealth's elaborate election-security measures. They do not run afoul of the United States Constitution. They will not otherwise be second-guessed by this Court," he wrote.
So, the judge basically told the Trump administration to butt out.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the ruling "a win for voters and our democracy," adding in a statement: "We have been in court for months protecting the right to vote and working to get this outcome for all of you. Vote by mail or in person, however you choose. Your vote will count."