Pennsylvania

How Courts Are Impacting 2024 Election: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Shuts Down RNC Effort To Disqualify Voters

Published

1 year ago

October 24, 2024

How Courts Are Impacting 2024 Election: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Shuts Down RNC Effort To Disqualify Voters

Topline

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected can still cast provisional ballots, after the Republican National Committee sued to stop the practice, as courts across the country are issuing a flurry of last-minute rulings on ballots and how elections are run in the month before Election Day as parties seek to expand or limit voter access.

A polling station in Hawthorne, California, on March 5.

AFP via Getty Images

Timeline

Oct. 23The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected because of defects—like issues with their signature or the date—can cast provisional ballots to make sure they can vote, after the RNC defended a county’s decision to stop those voters from casting ballots if their mail votes were rejected.

Oct. 22The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking new voting rules from taking effect—like a requirement to hand-count ballots and other provisions that Democrats warned could delay the election results from being certified—which means that while litigation will continue, the rules will not be in effect during the general election.

Oct. 22A federal judge dismissed a Republican National Committee-led lawsuit in Michigan that took issue with voter rolls in the state, alleging the number of voters was “impossibly high” and the state wasn’t removing voters from their rolls as required by law, with the judge ruling the plaintiffs didn’t provide enough evidence there was any wrongdoing.

Oct. 21Judges in Michigan and North Carolina rejected lawsuits brought by the RNC challenging overseas voters casting a ballot in those states even if they’ve never actually lived there—for instance, if their parents or spouse lived there—with the Michigan judge calling it an “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise” those voters.

Oct. 18A federal judge in Nevada dismissed an RNC lawsuit challenging the state’s voter rolls—claiming, like in Michigan, that the number of voters was “impossibly high”—throwing out the lawsuit for a second time and ruling the plaintiffs hadn’t provided any “concrete specifics” of wrongdoing.

Oct. 17A Trump-appointed judge in North Carolina struck down a Republican lawsuit aiming to remove 225,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls, alleging fraud, with the judge ruling that removing those voters would move the state “away from a democratic form of government.”

Oct. 16The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled convicted felons can vote in the state after they’ve completed their sentence, striking down an effort by the state to prevent them from voting as Nebraska could become pivotal to determining which presidential candidate wins the Electoral College.

Oct. 16A federal judge blocked a program in Alabama that purged voters from the voter rolls—claiming doing so would help prevent noncitizens from voting—after the Justice Department sued to stop the program because it was too close to the election.

Oct. 16A lower Georgia state judge blocked the new election rules in Georgia that could have potentially delayed the vote certification, after Democrats argued the state election board’s new rules could cause “chaos” in November.

Oct. 15The Ohio Supreme Court upheld restrictions on ballot drop boxes, after the state enacted new limitations saying people dropping off ballots for voters with disabilities have to go into an election office rather than leaving the ballot in a drop box.

Oct. 15A Georgia state judge issued a judgment saying state election workers must certify their county’s election results—regardless of whether they think any ballots were fraudulent—after an official who had refused to certify results in the past asked for clarification and more than a dozen local officials have voted against certifying in recent years.

Oct. 12A federal judge rejected an effort by conservatives to require Arizona to confirm voters’ citizenship ahead of the election.

Oct. 7The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to take up two voting cases after Democrats challenged counties throwing out ballots with incorrect or missing dates, and Republicans opposed some county officials letting voters correct issues with their mail-in ballots, which should not be allowed under state law.

What To Watch For

There are many outstanding cases that still have to be decided by Election Day, with Marc Elias, a voting rights attorney aligned with the Democratic Party, reporting Sunday that 191 cases are pending in 39 states. The Justice Department has sued Virginia for challenging voters’ eligibility too close to the election, for instance, and Georgia Republicans are appealing the ruling against the state election board’s new rules. The RNC has filed lawsuits taking aim at voting practices, including alleging Fulton County, Georgia, did not hire enough Republican poll workers. More lawsuits are also likely to be filed and rapidly decided in the two weeks before Election Day.

What We Don’t Know

What will happen after Election Day. Close election results in any battleground state could prompt a slew of lawsuits over how ballots are counted and the election results, as happened in 2020 when the Trump campaign launched a wide-ranging legal campaign challenging the vote count. Battleground states are already preparing for an anticipated onslaught of post-election lawsuits, Reuters reports, with Arizona’s court system ordering judges to prioritize election lawsuits so that certification doesn’t get delayed. Republican and Democratic campaigns are also gearing up for a busy legal landscape: An RNC official told ABC News the party has 5,000 volunteer attorneys ready to be deployed on Election Day, and ABC cited an internal memo from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign that claims it is “the most prepared campaign in history for what we face” in terms of litigation.

Chief Critic

Democrats have heavily criticized Republicans for the rash of lawsuits they’ve brought ahead of Election Day and are likely to continue filing, arguing the GOP is trying to sow doubt in the election results even before they’ve come in. “We’re seeing a record number of lawsuits filed before the election—nearly every day—in a seemingly coordinated push to use the legitimacy of the courts to lay the groundwork for discrediting an unfavorable result,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, told ABC News. “The lawsuits are not about getting legal relief, but about spreading conspiracy theories.” Many of the GOP lawsuits that have been brought are based on concerns about election irregularities or fraud, such as noncitizen voting or mail-in ballots, even though evidence has shown election fraud is exceedingly rare and there is no evidence of any widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Key Background

Republicans have ramped up legal challenges and tightened voting rules since the 2020 election. Trump and his allies filed at least 60 lawsuits challenging the vote count in 2020 as the then-president made baseless allegations of fraud, and Republicans have used Trump’s fraud allegations as an underpinning for their litigation challenging voting rules. GOP-led states have also pointed to Trump’s baseless claims to justify enacting their own tighter restrictions on voting ahead of the 2024 election, which Democrats have then challenged in court. The RNC announced in April it intended to make its litigation efforts a key part of its strategy in the general election, launching an extensive “election integrity” effort with 100,000 staffers and volunteers. Chief Counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement the “RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules” and “will aggressively take them to court if they don’t.”

Pennsylvania utilities appreciate market signals — but not market prices

Published

12 hours ago

April 19, 2026

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Pennsylvania utilities appreciate market signals — but not market prices

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Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania State Police investigating incident in Salisbury Township

Published

1 day ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

Pennsylvania State Police investigating incident in Salisbury Township

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — Pennsylvania State Police is investigating an incident in Salisbury Township on Saturday.

Lancaster County dispatch confirmed that troopers were called to the 4900 block of Strasburg Road for an incident that was reported around 11 a.m.

Fire and EMS was called to the area but have since been cleared, dispatch said.

This is a developing story. CBS 21 is working to learn more.

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Pennsylvania

What’s old is new again in Pennsylvania as the Penguins and Flyers renew a long-simmering rivalry

Published

2 days ago

April 18, 2026

Press Room

What’s old is new again in Pennsylvania as the Penguins and Flyers renew a long-simmering rivalry

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Sidney Crosby would not take the bait, even though the smile on his face and the gleam in his eye hinted that maybe the Pittsburgh Penguins captain kind of wanted to.

Told that Philadelphia Flyers coach Rick Tocchet – an assistant with the Penguins when Pittsburgh won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017 – knew his current team was going to have to “get after” Crosby and longtime running mates Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang when the cross-state rivals open their first-round series on Saturday night, Crosby just grinned.

“I mean, to be expected, what else can you expect me to say?” the 38-year-old future Hall of Famer said with a small laugh. “We’re all out there competing. We all are after the same thing. That’s how it works.”

Technically, that’s how it always seems to work whenever the Flyers and Penguins get together, regardless of circumstance. Things only figure to be ramped up considerably during the eighth – and perhaps most unlikely – playoff meeting between two teams separated by 300 miles geographically and considerably more in terms of postseason success.

The three Cups that Crosby has won during his 21-year career are one more than the Flyers have in the franchise’s nearly six-decade history, and yes some are still keeping track of Philadelphia’s long nuclear winter since its last championships.

The chances of either club being the last one standing when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman hands the Cup to the victors in early June are slim. Oddsmakers put the resurgent Penguins in the middle of the pack to win it all, while the Flyers – who needed a 14-4-1 sprint to the finish to return to the postseason for the first time since 2020 – are among the longest shots in the 16-team field.

Not that any of that will matter when the puck is dropped and the venom that has long defined the contentious relationship between the clubs bubbles back up to the surface.

That venom on Philadelphia’s side has long been targeted at Crosby, who has beaten the Flyers three times in four playoff meetings, with the one loss coming during a frantic six-game series in 2012. Almost all the faces from those teams are gone.

Except, of course, for perhaps the most important one. Crosby, the only player in NHL history to average a point a game in 21 straight years, remains a threat and highly motivated by the return to the playoffs following a three-year absence.

“We have a ton of respect for Sid,” Tocchet said. “He’s an unbelievable person and player. But we’ve got to get him in the ditches right? We’ve got to make it hard on him.”

A long-awaited debut

Rasmus Ristolainen’s agonizing wait to feel the vibe of playoff hockey is over.

The Flyers defenseman will make the first postseason appearance of his 13-year, 820-game career when he hops over the boards at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday night.

Ristolainen’s wait before his playoff debut is the third-longest in NHL history. The 31-year-old even played in the Olympics before a postseason game. He won a bronze medal in February while playing for Team Finland at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.

“Just really excited to play meaningful games this time of year,” said Ristolainen, who played in just 44 games this season while battling elbow injuries. “It’s been a really, really fun last month or so.”

Skinner or Silovs?

First-year Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse has flip-flopped between goaltenders Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs since the Penguins acquired Skinner in a trade with Edmonton in December.

Whether that will continue in the postseason is anybody’s guess. Skinner has a decided advantage over Silovs in playoff experience, having backstopped Edmonton to consecutive Cup appearances in 2024 and 2025.

Yet Muse has kept his thoughts close to the vest, and statistically speaking, Silovs and Skinner posted nearly identical numbers, none of them particularly great. Silovs finished the year with a .887 save percentage and a 3.07 goals against average while Skinner had a slightly worse save percentage (.885) and a slightly better goals against (2.99).

“We’re looking at all factors,” Muse said. “As I’ve said multiple times, I think both guys have been great for us. Both guys are a big part of why we’re here today preparing for Game 1.”

What’s old is new again

Philadelphia forward Sean Couturier has played for the Flyers for so long that he was actually teammates with his boss, general manager Danny Briere.

Couturier was once a key cog during a previous rebuilding phase in Philadelphia, back when he was the eighth overall pick in the 2011 draft. Couturier made his debut that season and has largely remained a steady presence in the lineup – save for back injuries that cost him the 2022-2023 season – and is the only Flyer still around from the franchise’s last home playoff series victory against, yes, the Penguins in 2012.

Couturier, Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny are the only three Flyers on the roster to have played in a home playoff game, back in 2018.

“We were for a lot of years kind of in the middle, competing hard,” said Courtier, who had 12 goals and 24 assists this season. “We had some good teams. Just always missing a little something to get to the next step. I think it was maybe time to take a step back and rebuild. I’m just glad with how everything’s gone, honestly.”

___

AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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