US federal judge dismisses challenge to Pennsylvania overseas ballots law

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner has dismissed Republicans’ challenge against a state law that obligates Pennsylvania to accept military and overseas ballots cast without requiring proof of identification.

The case concerned Pennsylvania’s Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act that allows overseas and military voters to mail in ballots without providing identification proof. 

The new law extended the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to state and local elections with an expanded class of eligible voters. 

Republicans argued that by waiving the requirement of identification proof, the law allows ineligible ballots that “leave federal elections vulnerable to foreign interference” by falsifying foreign postcard applications. 

They invited the court to bar Pennsylvania from implementing the new law and accepting overseas and military ballots.

Dismissing the challenge, Conner asserted it was brought with inexcusable delay – two years after the State Department issued the guidance for military-overseas voters in September 2022. 

The Republicans said they mounted the challenge at their earliest opportunities after the Department of Justice unsealed the indictment of several Iranians for election interference on Sept. 27. 

The plaintiff asserted the case revealed the risk of foreign interference and “voter dilution.” 

The court dismissed the lawsuit on other procedural grounds. 

Conner maintained that without suing Pennsylvania county boards of elections, the intended injunction against the Secretary of the Commonwealth is meaningless because the Secretary has no authority on the county boards.

The court also found the Republicans lacked standing because they suffered no legal injuries caused by the impugned provisions.

The Republicans brought this challenge under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which dictates federal law preempts state law. 

The court rejected the challenge because violating the Supremacy Clause is not a valid private cause of action.

In related news, the Republicans posed another challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, seeking to overturn the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s ruling requiring election boards to count provisional ballots submitted by voters whose mail-in had been deemed invalid.

Pennsylvania was one of the swing states in the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden won in Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes, with 1,400,150 mail-in ballots more than Donald Trump.