Cutler: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Ruling Allows Double Voting

Court violates own rule, causes confusion days after voting is underway

HARRISBURG – House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Peach Bottom) issued the following statement in response to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling on provisional ballots for voters who incorrectly return their mail-in ballots.

“As accurately stated by the Commonwealth Court in two separate opinions earlier this year, the objective of our election code is ‘advanced by ensuring that each qualified elector has the opportunity to vote exactly once in each primary or general election. However, after the Supreme Court’s latest intrusion into the legislature’s sole authority over time, places and manner of elections, it’s clear that the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court wants to provide some voters in our Commonwealth with more than one ‘opportunity to vote,’ increasing the possibility of double voting.”

“This decision, issued just days before the majority of voters will vote in person and after mail-in voting has already started, violates the court’s own pronouncement on Oct. 5 of this year that it ‘will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’ That sound principle, which the court’s own opinion had said was ‘common sense,’ lasted 18 days.  

“Once again, the court continues to engage in constitutional overreach. As Justice Mundy directly explained in her dissent, ‘the decision to direct the counting of provisional ballots in cases where the electors’ mail-in ballots have been timely received, in direct contravention of existing law, is an unconstitutional intrusion upon the role reserved to state legislatures by the Federal Constitution.’

“This ruling does nothing but promote more election day chaos. As Justices Brobson, Wecht and Mundy accurately point out in their dissenting opinion, this ruling essentially allows ALL mail-in voters to also vote provisionally, since a mail-in ballot is never truly received until it is canvassed by the Board of Elections post-election.

“One person, one vote, one time. When a voter opts for mail-in voting, and they return their ballot to their county election office, the voter has exercised his or her right. The same way if someone votes in person and puts his or her vote in the machine – the process is completed. That’s what the law says.

“Pennsylvanians demand safe, secure and accurate elections with results delivered in a timely manner. The continued actions by this partisan Supreme Court to re-write the law continues to erode the trust voters have in our electoral process.”