By Peter Hall | Pennsylvania Capital-Star
A Pennsylvania court has dismissed a lawsuit by two state lawmakers challenging the procedures for counting absentee ballots, arguing that they must be returned to and counted at the polling places where absentee voters would normally cast ballots.
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The lawsuit, filed in January on behalf of state Reps. Kathy Rapp (R-Warren) and David Zimmerman (R-Lancaster), sought a court declaring sections of the Pennsylvania Election Code and the guidance of the Department of State in violation of the state constitution.
The suit named as defendants Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and all 67 county boards of elections.
In a decision Friday, Commonwealth Court Judge President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer granted requests by Schmidt and the county boards to dismiss the case, writing that the court was bound by a nearly 60-year-old state Supreme Court decision.
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Rapp and Zimmerman’s lawsuit contended that sections of the Election Code requiring absentee ballots to be returned to and counted by county Boards of Elections are at odds with the Constitution’s requirement that they be returned to and counted in the precincts where a voter resides.
In her opinion for the court, Cohn Jubelirer wrote that the Supreme Court in 1968 analyzed the Election Code sections and the Constitutional provision and concluded that the constitution requires “the return and canvass of [electors’] votes,” not ballots, “in the election district in which they respectively reside.”
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Cohn Jubelirer noted that the Supreme Court in 1968 recognized the same arguments raised by Schmidt and the county boards of elections in response to Rapp and Zimmerman that requiring absentee ballots to be returned to polling places would be costly and a logistical nightmare.
In his brief opposing the lawmakers’ claims, Schmidt noted that they had failed to explain how having absentee ballots counted in dozens of individual polling places would benefit candidates.
“To the contrary, Petitioners do not dispute — and therefore concede — that their requested relief would require them to expend more time and resources, since they would have to send observers to dozens of polling places instead of to the boards of elections offices for Berks, Lancaster, Warren, Forest, and Crawford Counties,” the brief said.
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Rapp, Zimmerman, and their attorney Greg Teufel did not respond to messages Tuesday. The Department of State did not respond to a request for comment by the deadline for this article.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and Twitter.
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