A federal judge in Pennsylvania denied a Republican-led effort to throw out votes within a county that allowed voters to fix or “cure” errors on their absentee ballots.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Savage, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, rejected the lawsuit on Friday.
?⚖️BREAKING: Fed judge in PENNSYLVANIA denies GOP effort to toss ballots that initially contained errors that were later corrected (or “cured”) pic.twitter.com/Hxo1sbSknY
— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) November 6, 2020
The denial came days after Savage said he was dubious of the arguments behind such a move, as Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, remains counting thousands of ballots sent by mail. The state, which has 20 electoral votes, could determine the outcome of the presidential election.
Savage was skeptical about the matter in an exchange with a lawyer for GOP congressional candidate Kathy Barnette during a Wednesday morning hearing in Philadelphia on the lawsuit, according to Politico.
Attorney Thomas Breth argued that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that the law prohibits counties from letting voters who made a mistake on their ballot to complete or package their mail-in ballots to correct those errors.
“I’m not sure about that,” Savage said. “Is that exactly what was said, or is what was said was that there is no mandatory requirement that the election board do that? … Wasn’t the legislative intent of the statute we are talking about to franchise, not disenfranchise, voters?”
Breth responded, saying it wasn’t disenfranchising voters and that they weren’t allowed to “cure” their ballot unless the election code provided them with that authority.
Savage, however, suggested that a miscast absentee vote blocked a voter from fixing that ballot or casting a different ballot at the polls.
“It counts as your vote, but your vote is not counted?” he said of that notion.
The lawsuit focused on the practice in Montgomery County, a suburb of Philadelphia, that allows voters to correct their “naked ballots” and others with technical issues.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the election. He has 264 electoral votes to President Trump’s 214, according to the Associated Press.
Biden was leading Pennsylvania by over 14,000 votes on Friday, after the president led the state for the past two days. Trump has also prematurely claimed victory in a handful of states, including Pennsylvania.
