The Patriot Post® · Keystone Judges Undermine PA Election Law

Pennsylvania was recently the subject of a ruling that found the state’s onerous shutdowns violated the Constitution. It was a win for Rule of Law. Unfortunately, the state’s Supreme Court just delivered the opposite result, rewriting state laws about ballot counting in such a way that could distort and undermine the 2020 election.

Despite state law requiring that mailed ballots be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day, the state Supreme Court, by a slim 4-3 leftist majority, opted to rewrite the law less than seven weeks ahead of the election. “There is no ambiguity regarding the deadline set by the General Assembly,” the court’s four-judge majority correctly noted, but they then cited the state’s constitution to undo that law: “Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

The trouble is that line does not empower judicial despots to overturn state law that in no way violates the state’s constitution.

After this ruling, ballots must still be counted even if they don’t have postmarks, and even if they don’t arrive until November 6 — three days after the election. In fact, voters don’t even have to put their ballots in the mailbox until Election Day, and if the Electoral College is to be decided by Pennsylvania, Americans won’t know the winner of the presidential election for several days or even weeks if legal wrangling ensues.

Philadelphia has quite the history of voter fraud already, and the state’s Supreme Court just opened the door wide for more shenanigans. Clearly, the radical Left’s 2020 agenda — now aided by four judges in the Keystone State — is undermining Americans’ faith in our electoral process.