Supreme Court Hands Republican Party a Loss in Pennsylvania Election Case

All nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to uphold a ruling by Pennsylvania’s high court regarding provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots are found to be defective.
The order on Friday follows a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on October 23, which struck down a challenge from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Butler County that Pennsylvania’s Election Code does not allow voters’ provisional ballots to be counted if their mail-in ballot is returned on time, even if a voter suspects or is told that their mail-in ballot was rejected.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Butler County voters Faith Genser and Frank Matis, both of whom voted in the 2024 primary election by mail. After being told their ballots were rejected because they failed to enclose the tickets in a secrecy envelope before returning them, Genser and Matis voted in person. The pair were later told that their provisional ballots were also not counted.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that provisional ballots must be counted even if a voter submitted a mail-in ballot by the state’s deadline. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the court’s opinion Friday, said that even if a stay was placed on the Pennsylvania high court’s decision, it would “not impose any binding obligation on any of the Pennsylvania officials who are responsible for the conduct of this year’s election.”
“The lower court’s judgment concerns just two votes in the long-completed Pennsylvania primary,” read the opinion by Alito, who was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
Alito added that “because the only state election officials who are parties in this case are the members of the board of elections in one small county, we cannot order other election boards to sequester affected ballots. For these reasons, I agree with the order denying the application.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as further information becomes available.