This Time They Don’t Want Overseas Military Votes Counted
We’ve noted recently that extremist former Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, an insurrectionist, is on the verge of losing his seat. In fact, a new Susquehanna poll shows former Republican Janelle Stelson beating him 48-39%. And now Perry, whose phone has been seized by the FBI as evidence that he plotted to overthrow either the government or the 2020 election, has filed suit with 5 other Pennsylvania MAGA extremists— Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn Thompson, Mike Kelly and Lloyd Smucker— to prevent military service members stationed abroad from have their ballots counted.
All six were election denialists who voted against certifying the 2020 election. Fellow Pennsylvania Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and John Joyce (who represents the furthest right district in the state) have refused to join their crackpot suit, which contends that the state of Pennsylvania violates federal election law by failing to verify the identities of service members who apply for overseas absentee ballots. They seek to prevent service members’ ballots from being counted because so many of the enlisted men and women and their spouses are from minority groups that support Democrats and, as Trump allies, they fear their votes could tip the election. Other than Perry, none of the Republicans complaining have enough minority voters in their districts to make much of a difference. This is really an attack on service members who are from Philly and Pittsburgh. The RNC filed a similar lawsuit last week seeking to prevent North Carolina service members’ ballots from being counted and Republicans are trying the same stunt in Michigan, all battleground states with large African-American military enlistment. There are no similar challenges in deep red states like Wyoming, the Dakotas, West Virginia, Tennessee or among any of the old slave-holding states that made up the Confederacy and that now back the MAGA movement.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday that Perry, who had requested a pardon from Trump for his role in the attempted coup, and his pals claim that the overseas ballots “are susceptible to fraud because those voters are not subject to ID requirements applied to U.S.-based absentee voters. Several election-law experts called the suit a voter-suppression play that faces little chance in court given its last-minute filing before the highly consequential presidential election in Pennsylvania. ‘This is not designed to fix a problem that actually exists,’ David Becker, of the nonpartisan Center for Election and Innovation, said of the lawsuit. He sees it as a move to sow distrust ahead of the election. ‘If their preferred candidate loses, you are guaranteed to hear an attack on military voters, how they are somehow a pathway to fraud,’ Becker said. ‘And I would hope that we all, no matter who we voted for, would be offended by that attack.’”
State and federal law exempts certain voters, including those overseas and serving in the military, from the election code’s ID requirements for absentee voters, which require a driver’s license number or the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number to receive a ballot. The state’s top election officials— who previously responded to a similar challenge that has lingered in Commonwealth Court for more than a year— say instances of voting fraud associated with these ballots are extremely rare.
“Ballots cast by ineligible voters occur at extremely low rates and are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities when they occur,” Heckel said. “Individuals registering to vote must affirm that the information they submit is accurate, with any false statement subjecting them to a potential felony conviction, prison sentence, and substantial fine.”
…While the suit was filed on behalf of the lawmakers in their capacity as candidates running for reelection, a ruling in their favor could have implications for the presidential election in Pennsylvania, a state that has been pivotal in determining the national winner in the last two elections by a razor-thin margin and promises to do the same in November.
About 25,000 overseas ballots for the 2024 election have already been sent out to military members, their family members, and other citizens living abroad, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit, filed two weeks after counties started mailing ballots to military and overseas voters, focuses on the identification requirements for people who request absentee ballots through UOCAVA, the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The process requires applicants to fill in their name, voting address, and current overseas mailing address. The online form asks for the last four digits of their Social Security number or for a driver’s license number, but if applicants have neither, they can enter “NONE.”
The UOCAVA law has been around since 1986 and was written to avoid an overly cumbersome voting process for members of the military. It could be amended by an act of Congress.
“This is a dangerous political stunt,” Becker said. “If Congress thought UOCAVA needed clarification or additional requirements, what have they been doing? It’s just an incredible self-indictment of their legislative responsibilities.”
…Casting doubt on Pennsylvania’s election system was a tactic used by Trump-aligned groups in 2020 to try to overturn the election. Neither the Republican National Committee nor the campaign for former President Donald Trump has signed onto the current lawsuit.
A senior adviser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign accused the lawmakers of “trying to set aside votes so that they can argue that the election somehow was untoward or not handled in the appropriate fashion.”
The Democratic National Committee has intervened as a party in the case, contending that lawmakers’ request would harm its voter outreach efforts and force it divert resources.
“Setting aside tens of thousands of ballots cast by lawfully registered military and overseas voters … would directly and substantially impair the rights and interests of the DNC and the [Democratic Party],” the committee wrote. “Both groups devote substantial time and resources to campaigning and get-out-the-vote efforts, which would be infringed upon.”
A similar suit was brought last year in state court by Heather Honey, a Pennsylvania-based “election integrity” investigator whose often-disproven research has been promoted by the far right.
The state responded to Honey’s suit— which is still lingering in court— in June and said it was in compliance with election law.
A member of Honey’s Election Research Institute, Karen DiSalvo, is now cocounsel in the federal complaint. The other attorney representing the lawmakers is Erick Kaardal, a Minneapolis-based lawyer, who challenged Congress’ certification of the 2020 election on behalf of voters’ groups in Pennsylvania.
The Department of State has until Friday to respond to the suit, with a hearing set for mid-October.
“This challenge appears to be a continuation of the unfounded litigation in state and federal court filed in 2020 in an effort to sow confusion and ultimately to throw out the votes of millions of Pennsylvanians and overturn the results of that legitimate election,” department spokesperson Amy Gulli said in a statement. “Those efforts failed then, and these latest dishonest efforts will also fail.”
Pennsylvania Department of State spokesman said “Thousands of Pennsylvanians are currently serving our country abroad as members of the military, putting their lives on the line to defend our freedoms. But despite the sacrifices they make to protect us, some elected leaders are now making bad-faith arguments to prevent these votes from being counted.”
The DCCC called Perry’s participation in the suit a “disgraceful” attempt to disenfranchise service members and that Perry has voted against the interests of service members at every opportunity he’s had. DCCC spokesperson Aiden Johnson said “With a deeply unpopular record, Scott Perry knows that the only way he can cling onto power is by disenfranchising his constituents and stripping away their right to vote, even for our military members serving overseas. Pennsylvania deserves so much better than Perry’s transparently self-serving desperation.”
There is kinda a precedent or three here. In bush v. gore and twice since, the supreme nazis have decided that counting votes is actually contraindicated in a shithole democracy such as ours when the winner might be a democrap.
So... it's all legal, n'est ce pas? I mean, your side has refused to do shit about any of the 3 cases on the books. So you all don't care.