Pennsylvania Courts Reject Trump Campaign Effort To Throw Out Thousands Of Mail-In Ballots

Topline

Pennsylvania state courts issued a slew of rulings Friday striking down the Trump campaign’s efforts to get mail-in ballots in Philadelphia and nearby Montgomery County thrown out for minor defects, delivering the latest blow to President Donald Trump’s legal effort to challenge the election results in battleground states and thwarting the campaign’s strategy of trying to invalidate mail-in ballots in a bid to narrow the Pennsylvania race between Trump and President-elect Joe Biden.

Key Facts

Big Number

59,533. That’s the number of votes by which Biden currently leads Trump in Pennsylvania as of Friday evening. While the state is still counting some provisional ballots, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said Friday it’s now clear that Biden will win by a large enough margin that there will not be a recount.

Key Background

The Pennsylvania rulings are part of a broader legal effort by the Trump campaign to challenge Biden’s presidential win, which has involved lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Michigan and been dismissed as largely meritless by legal experts. Though the Trump campaign did notch a minor win in Pennsylvania Thursday, as a court invalidated some mail-in ballots with proof of identification issues that had not yet been counted, the legal effort has largely been unsuccessful thus far. The mail-in ballot rulings in Philadelphia and Montgomery County came after the Trump campaign and GOP had already lost court rulings in Michigan and Pennsylvania earlier Friday, and dropped an effort to contest ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona because it could not impact the presidential result. 

What To Watch For

A similar Trump campaign lawsuit challenging mail-in ballots is still pending in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as is a more wide-ranging Trump lawsuit that seeks to invalidate Pennsylvania’s election. (The law firm that had been representing the Trump campaign withdrew from that case late Thursday, and legal experts say the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed.) It’s also still possible that the U.S. Supreme Court could invalidate the state’s extended deadline allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if they arrived by Friday, Nov. 6, but those ballots are being segregated and thus would not affect the current vote count if invalidated. 

Further Reading

Trump campaign challenges mail-in votes in Bucks, Montco (Bucks County Courier Times)

Trump’s campaign is challenging mail and provisional ballots at record rates in Philly and its suburbs (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Law Firm Withdraws From Trump Campaign’s Pennsylvania Lawsuit Amid Pressure (Forbes)

Pennsylvania Judge Rules In Favor Of Trump Campaign, Orders State Can’t Count Some Ballots (Forbes)

Trump Campaign Admits Arizona Lawsuit Wouldn’t Change Presidential Results (Forbes)