Bucks County Judge Denies Trump Campaign’s Effort To Invalidate Some Votes

A Bucks County judge dismissed an effort by President Donald Trump’s campaign to invalidate close to 2,200 ballots cast in the general election.

Judge Robert Baldi denied efforts Thursday afternoon to throw out a number of votes and dismissed the case in a decision that comes just days before Pennsylvania will certify their final vote tallies.

During the November 3 election, more than 395,500 votes were counted within the county. The unofficial results, which were pre-certified by the Board of Elections on Tuesday, had Biden about 17,000 votes ahead of Trump.

The Trump campaign challenge, which was supported by campaigns Garrity for PA and Heidelbaugh for Attorney General Inc., sought to invalidate roughly 2,200 ballots that it claimed were defective under the state election code. The ballots all featured some relatively minor problem, including the outer envelope not being properly filled out, the privacy envelope not being sealed, or markings or smudges.

Roughly 164,000 mail-in and absentee ballots were submitted to the Board of Elections and 918 were rejected by county officials due to insufficiencies.

Britain Henry, of Goldstein Law Partners, made the case in court on Tuesday that those ballots did not follow the exact letter of the election code.

Jessica VanderKam, the attorney for the Board of Elections, said the county accepted ballots with minor issues that did not appear to have nefarious intent behind the errors.

In court, it was stated that the candidates selected by the voters with ballots in question were unknown. Baldi noted the irony during Tuesday’s hearing that the Trump campaign could be fighting to invalidate votes for their candidate and Democrats could be fighting to allow Republican votes.

Attorneys for the Democratic National Committee, Bucks County Democratic Committee, and PA House Democratic Committee argued before Baldi that the ballots should be counted.

During the hearing, some of the focus was on the definition, intent, and intention of a seperate court’s use of the word “shall” in regards to election law and whether it allows for any wiggle room for ballots with very minor issues.

On the issue of ballots with unsealed privacy envelopes, Baldi wrote in his decision that it would be an “injustice” to invalidate those ballots and “disenfranchise” those voters. He noted there was no evidence that unsealed privacy envelopes jeopardized the privacy of the ballot and some seals may have come undone by no fault of the voter.

Baldi wrote in his decision that voters and county election boards across the state could benefit for “clear precise legislation” from lawmakers in Harrisburg regarding ballots with minor problems for future elections.

“Board of Elections staff worked very hard on ensuring that every vote was counted. We are grateful that the judge validated their efforts,” Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, the chairperson for the Board of Elections, said in a statement after the judge issued his decision.

“We’re grateful that the court rejected this attempt to disenfranchise Bucks County voters. The Election Code isn’t a game of gotcha. It’s a playbook for protecting the vote,” said Joe Khan, the county solicitor.

Earlier this week, the Trump campaign said in agreed upon stipulation that there was no evidence of fraud, misconduct, impropriety, and undue influence in Bucks County’s election. The statement backs up comments by county officials and the heads of the local Democratic and Republican committees.

Pennsylvania officials and law enforcement across the state have not confirmed any cases of widespread fraud.

The president has claimed since the election that he won Pennsylvania, but vote tallies show him tens of thousands of votes behind former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrat who has been projected to be the next president.

The Trump campaign has thrown multiple legal challenges at election results in Pennsylvania and across the nation. Nearly all the attempts have failed, according to Politico.

Attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Marc Scaringi, who are representing the Trump campaign in a statewide lawsuit, filed a motion Thursday requesting a federal judge go against the votes of residents and declare Trump “the winner of the legal votes cast in Pennsylvania in the 2020 General Election, and, thus, the recipient of Pennsylvania’s electors.”

Giuliani and other Trump campaign attorneys have said in court that their cases do not involve voter fraud, but the president and his campaign have later stated there was widespread fraud. The campaign has been unable to provide substantive evidence of widespread fraud as of Thursday.

Two U.S. Department of Homeland Security committees, which are overseen by the White House, released a joint statement last week that said the election was “the most secure in American history.”

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