Judge rejects GOP congressmens’ lawsuit challenging vetting process for Pennsylvania overseas ballots

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a Republican lawsuit that sought to segregate overseas ballots in Pennsylvania for additional vetting.

US District Judge Christopher Conner said that the challengers to Pennsylvania’s policies for overseas ballots filed by GOP members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation and an outside group came too late and that it was too close to the election for a court to intervene.

The overseas vote has long been viewed as sacrosanct because of its connection to the military vote, and the Pennsylvania lawsuit – which would have jeopardized the ballots of service people abroad – drew a sharp backlash.

In recent election cycles, the civilian expat community has outnumbered military voters casting ballots. Democrats have touted their effort to turn out their voters abroad.

Tuesday’s ruling comes on the heels of court losses for Republicans in Michigan and North Carolina in Republican National Committee lawsuits that challenged overseas ballots cast by voters who had never lived in those states but were eligible to vote because of familial ties to those states. Those cases have been appealed, but the Michigan appeal will not be resolved before the election.

Conner said that the court order that Republicans were asking for was a “nonstarter.”

“An injunction at this late hour would upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters, to say nothing of the state and county administrators who would be expected to implement these new procedures on top of their current duties,” Conner, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said.

“Plaintiffs delayed too long to file their action, they lack standing, they have failed to join indispensable parties, and they have failed to articulate a viable cause of action,” Conner added.

He cited other procedural issues with Republicans’ lawsuit as well.

A lawyer for the House Republicans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pennsylvania election officials said in court filings that the lawsuit “would potentially disenfranchise thousands of voters who are qualified to vote under Pennsylvania law.” At a court hearing earlier this month, a lawyer for the election officials said that by the time the complaint had been filed, 26,000 overseas ballots had been requested in Pennsylvania. It’s not clear how many would have been rejected under the more stringent verification procedures Republicans were seeking.

In the Pennsylvania case, the Republicans were arguing that election officials should take additional steps to verify ballots cast in the state from overseas voters.

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