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Pa. Commonwealth Court tosses no-excuse mail ballot law; appeal expected quickly
I found out about this via an email alert from my Congressman and then later heard it on the local news radio here in Philly... Finally got chance to get some more details (it's been a busy "weather tracking" day with the incoming snow storm over here on the eastern part of the state).
As a note, this was done by a different loon GOP Commonwealth Court judge (Emerita Mary Hannah Leavitt) from the one who usually does anti-democratic rulings - Patricia McCullough, whose husband just started serving a prison sentence last April for bilking money out of an elderly woman to support the local branch of the charity his wife the Judge, was Executive Dir. for. 
Pa. Commonwealth Court tosses no-excuse mail ballot law; appeal expected quickly
By Katie MeyerJanuary 28, 2022
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court handed down an opinion early Friday declaring a major election law unconstitutional. The 2019 law, known as Act 77, dramatically expanded mail voting ahead of the 2020 election, passing with near-unanimous Republican support. Then, in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s loss, it became a target of GOP vitriol. Gov. Tom Wolf has pledged to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court, and Adam Bonin, an election lawyer who frequently works on behalf of Democrats, says he expects the high court to reverse the ruling.
“We have a court which has demonstrated time and time again, over the past few years, that it cares deeply about the rights of voters, that it wants to enfranchise voters whenever possible,” Bonin said. “I predict that they will say that Act 77 was an absolutely lawful, absolutely constitutional way to expand the right of voters to vote safely and securely from their homes.” He also noted there’s little chance that the law will lapse for any significant period of time. As soon as an appeal to the Commonwealth Court’s decision is filed, the decision will be stayed from taking effect until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court makes its ruling.
“In other words, voters should not be worried that mail in voting is going to go away for the primary this spring,” he said. Judges in Pennsylvania’s appellate courts are elected. The Commonwealth Court is controlled by more judges elected as Republicans; the Supreme Court is dominated by Democrats. Along with allowing no-excuse mail voting for any person in Pennsylvania (limited absentee voting had been available before), Act 77 gave Pennsylvania voters an additional two weeks to register to vote, and a few more days to return absentee ballots.
Many lawmakers opposed it when it first passed, but they weren’t Republicans. Democrats were dismayed by a provision in the bill that got rid of the straight-party option on ballots. Only two Republicans in the House opposed the bill, and every GOP senator voted for it. The suit challenging Act 77 was filed by Doug McLinko, a Republican Bradford County Commissioner, and a group of Republican state lawmakers — most of whom had initially supported the measure.
https://whyy.org/articles/pa-commonwealth-court-tosses-no-excuse-mail-ballot-law-appeal-expected-quickly/
By Katie MeyerJanuary 28, 2022
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court handed down an opinion early Friday declaring a major election law unconstitutional. The 2019 law, known as Act 77, dramatically expanded mail voting ahead of the 2020 election, passing with near-unanimous Republican support. Then, in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s loss, it became a target of GOP vitriol. Gov. Tom Wolf has pledged to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court, and Adam Bonin, an election lawyer who frequently works on behalf of Democrats, says he expects the high court to reverse the ruling.
“We have a court which has demonstrated time and time again, over the past few years, that it cares deeply about the rights of voters, that it wants to enfranchise voters whenever possible,” Bonin said. “I predict that they will say that Act 77 was an absolutely lawful, absolutely constitutional way to expand the right of voters to vote safely and securely from their homes.” He also noted there’s little chance that the law will lapse for any significant period of time. As soon as an appeal to the Commonwealth Court’s decision is filed, the decision will be stayed from taking effect until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court makes its ruling.
“In other words, voters should not be worried that mail in voting is going to go away for the primary this spring,” he said. Judges in Pennsylvania’s appellate courts are elected. The Commonwealth Court is controlled by more judges elected as Republicans; the Supreme Court is dominated by Democrats. Along with allowing no-excuse mail voting for any person in Pennsylvania (limited absentee voting had been available before), Act 77 gave Pennsylvania voters an additional two weeks to register to vote, and a few more days to return absentee ballots.
Many lawmakers opposed it when it first passed, but they weren’t Republicans. Democrats were dismayed by a provision in the bill that got rid of the straight-party option on ballots. Only two Republicans in the House opposed the bill, and every GOP senator voted for it. The suit challenging Act 77 was filed by Doug McLinko, a Republican Bradford County Commissioner, and a group of Republican state lawmakers — most of whom had initially supported the measure.
https://whyy.org/articles/pa-commonwealth-court-tosses-no-excuse-mail-ballot-law-appeal-expected-quickly/
Due to how the STATE appeals work, the ruling is automatically stayed upon an appeal, so there would currently be no change in voting for the upcoming primary. And as a note - I think Act-77 was literally passed unanimously by the state Senate's GOP contingent and by all but 1 or 2 Republicans in the State House. It was mainly put in place because the GOP wanted to get rid of the straight-party ticket voting option on ballots (used by Democrats - particularly in urban areas), and was something added as a compromise to get the expansion of mail-in voting that Democrats wanted (and that provision to remove straight-party voting triggered a number of Democrats to vote against the bill).
Now suddenly they all "got the memo" to lockstep support "The Big Lie®" and get rid of any voting rights. The last time they tried to throw out Act-77 last year, the majority-(D) State Supreme Court said, um no. Based on the law itself, there was a clear provision directing that any challenges to the constitutionality of the law needed to occur within 180 days of enactment, which would have been by April 30, 2020 right before what later became a rescheduled (due to covid) primary. April 30, 2020 came and went with not a peep about any problems and the delayed primary that had been moved to early June, also came and went with no objections to the process. Then came November 3, 2020.
I saw that stalwart democracy-defender lawyer Marc Elias was "monitoring" this but his group is not currently involved in the appeals litigation -
Link to tweet
Marc E. Elias
@marceelias
I am not (as of now) involved in this case, but I would expect a quick appeal to the PA Supreme Court.
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
🚨ALERT: Pennsylvania court strikes down Act 77, a massive bipartisan election reform law passed in 2019. After the ruling, Pennsylvania must end no-excuse mail-in voting, shorten the mail ballot return window, move up voter registration deadlines & more. https://democracydocket.com/alerts/pennsylvania-law-expanding-voter-access-struck-down-by-court/
10:21 AM · Jan 28, 2022
@marceelias
I am not (as of now) involved in this case, but I would expect a quick appeal to the PA Supreme Court.
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
🚨ALERT: Pennsylvania court strikes down Act 77, a massive bipartisan election reform law passed in 2019. After the ruling, Pennsylvania must end no-excuse mail-in voting, shorten the mail ballot return window, move up voter registration deadlines & more. https://democracydocket.com/alerts/pennsylvania-law-expanding-voter-access-struck-down-by-court/
10:21 AM · Jan 28, 2022
https://www.democracydocket.com/alerts/pennsylvania-law-expanding-voter-access-struck-down-by-court/
The RW loon state legislature has now found a way to attempt to get around laws they don't like or those laws THEY passed that are used by Democrats in a way detrimental to their agenda, or those that they are attempting to change to become more draconian and fascist that will be vetoed by a Democratic Governor (and they don't have enough to override), by going through the convoluted process of changing the State Constitution. Doing so involves passage of the change in 2 successive state Assembly sessions and then creating misleading ballot questions for voters to vote on at the end of the process, knowing full well that many (except their own loons) "sit out" off-year and primary elections when they insert the referendum questions on the ballots.
3 replies
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Even the news report said that.
I think the bigger issue is the crap about changing the state Constitution, where their changes would then eventually be referendums on the ballot that are written so poorly and confusingly, that the few who actually show up to vote ( ) will either skip it or agree to it.
Witness what happened with the nonsense that strips the Disaster/Emergency declaration authority from the governor and hands it over (as an option) for the state legislature to deal with, 2 weeks after the declaration has been in place. That was done by a change to the state Constitution and they patiently took the multiple years needed, to do it. 