PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Trump campaign has filed a wide-ranging federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania and a handful of counties, asking for an emergency order to prevent the certification of election results.
Among the claims in the suit: voters in blue counties got protections voters in red counties didn’t get.
Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties are among the seven counties named in the suit.
It accuses them of reviewing mail-in ballots for missing signatures or secrecy envelopes, then contacting voters to fix them.
The argument in the suit is that it’s a violation of the Election Code, which says there can be no pre-canvassing before Election Day.
The suit argues Republican-majority counties followed the law, and since voters in those counties were not offered the same notice to cure a ballot, it’s a violation of the Equal Protections Clause.
But some county officials say the standard practice has always been, if you see a deficiency, you fix it.
And they say offering an opportunity to correct errors involving sealed envelopes is not pre-canvassing as no envelopes were opened, and no decisions were made before Election Day on whether those ballots should or shouldn’t be accepted.
Montgomery County officials have said previously they believe their process is sound and permissible.
The suit also questions allowing ballots to arrive three days after Election Day, keeping observers too far from the count, and creating different standards for confirming identity for in-person and mail-in voting.
The suit asks the secretary of state and the seven counties be barred from certifying results of the general election and it wants any ballot where voters were given a chance to correct an error to be tossed.
“Delaware County conducted a fair election, in accordance with State law. The Trump campaign and other Republican interests have sued the County six times in the last several weeks, on election matters, and lost every time. I expect this will be the seventh,” said Delaware County Solicitor William Martin.