(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A Pennsylvania court struck down the state’s Act 77, a law which allowed residents to mail in ballots with no valid excuse, the Post Millennial reported.
In a 3-2 decision, Republican judges struck down the act, while Democratic judges voted to uphold the law.
“Since 1838, the Pennsylvania Constitution has required a qualified elector to appear at a polling place in the election district where he resides and on Election Day,” Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt write in her opinion. “This requirement was adopted ‘thereby to exclude disqualified pretenders and fraudulent voters of all sorts.'”
Unfortunately, this appears to be a merely temporary setback for Pennsylvania Democrats, since the court struck down the Act on procedural grounds rather than constitutional.
“Specifically, article VII, section 4 states: ‘All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law,'” Leavitt wrote.
Instead of passing a law, Democrats will have to present the Act to the public as a constitutional amendment, and the people of Pennsylvania will have to verify the proposed amendment.
“No-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient and has been used four times in the history of Pennsylvania,” Leavitt wrote.
She added that such a proposal’s adoption is even probable.
“Approximately 1.38 million voters have expressed their interest in voting by mail permanently,” Leavitt said. “If presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end the Article VII, Section 1 requirement of in-person voting is likely to be adopted.”
Making matters more uncertain, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the state will likely appeal the decision to the far-left Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which would leave the Act in place while its fate is decided.
Democrats, who control both the executive and judiciary branches in the key battleground state, used the pretense of pandemic “emergency” orders to implement last-minute changes to election administration in 2020, bypassing the GOP-controlled state legislature.
Despite legal challenges that reached all the way to the US Supreme Court, those efforts were dismissed on technicalities, keeling the corrupt Pennsylvania Supreme Court as the final arbiter.
