By Kari Donovan
Republicans have filed a lawsuit in the state of Pennsylvania that could destroy the entire 2020 Presidential election, if they gain legal authority to scrutinize the process of mail in voting.
“Yesterday several Pennsylvania Republican Party officials and individual Republican voters filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to obtain declaratory and injunctive relief based on a claim that the legislation which adopted “no excuse” eligibility for absentee voting was an illegitimate amendment of the Pennsylvania State Constitution,” Shipewreckedcrew wrote for Red State.com.
The Complaint alleges that the Pennsylvania State Constitution requires in-person voting, and the only recognized exception to this requirement is the options reflected in Sec. 14, which were added to the Constitution via the accepted Amendment process in 1967. Sec. 14 sets forth four specific bases for a qualified voter to cast an absentee vote under the Constitution: 1) the voter will be absent from their municipality because duties, occupation, or business needs require them to be elsewhere; 2) illness or physical disability; 3) observance of a religious holiday, and 4) due to status as a county worker.
In other words, recognizing that there was no basis in the Constitution to support “no excuse” mail-in balloting, at the same time the Pennsylvania Legislature approved Act 77, it also initiated the process for Amending Sec. 14 of the Constitution to accomplish that purpose. However, neither Act 77 nor the simultaneously proposed amendment were ever passed by a majority vote of the Legislature in two consecutive sessions, and neither was ever approved by a majority of voters in Pennsylvania in a general election.
The heart of the lawsuit, the Democrats went around the PA state legislature:
- Defendant the Pennsylvania General Assembly is the state legislature
for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is comprised of the State House and
State Senate. The General Assembly convenes in the State Capitol building in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.- The U.S. Constitution provides that the Legislatures of each state shall
direct the manner for appointing electors for President and Vice President. The
General Assembly is named as a party who would be at least partially responsible
for implementing the relief Plaintiffs seek.