Pennsylvania

Opinion | A Mail-Vote Time Bomb in Pennsylvania

Published

2 years ago

October 16, 2022

Press Room

Opinion | A Mail-Vote Time Bomb in Pennsylvania

An individual drops off a mail-in poll at an election poll return field in Willow Grove, Pa.,

Picture:

Matt Rourke/Related Press

Divided authorities has prevented Pennsylvania from substantively updating its voting legal guidelines because the election mess of 2020, and it’ll spin the roulette wheel once more in November. Think about if management of the Senate comes right down to

John Fetterman

and Mehmet Oz, with a choose requested to resolve whether or not to rely undated mail ballots.

Final week the Supreme Courtroom cleared the decks for that risk. The story begins with a Pennsylvania judicial election from 2021. Republican David Ritter led by 71 ballots, however there have been 257 mail ballots on which voters didn’t hand-write a date. The Pennsylvania judiciary has held that relationship is obligatory, as a result of the legislation tells voters to “fill out, date and signal.”

But the federal Third Circuit Courtroom of Appeals held this Might that refusing to rely these 257 votes would breach the Civil Rights Act. Including to the overall spirit of mayhem was the timing. The Third Circuit rushed out its judgment amid the disputed Republican major between Mr. Oz and David McCormick, as if the court docket deliberately sought to upend how the GOP ballots have been being counted at that second.

The Supreme Courtroom declined to remain the Third Circuit, with a dissent by three conservatives. The Third Circuit’s view “may be very probably unsuitable,” Justice

Samuel Alito

wrote. “If left undisturbed, it might nicely have an effect on the result of the autumn elections, and it might be much better for us to deal with that interpretation earlier than, slightly than after, it has that impact.”

With the 257 ballots tallied, Mr. Ritter misplaced by 5. His defeat was duly licensed. However he despatched the Excessive Courtroom a ultimate petition for evaluate anyway, protesting that Pennsylvania “has ordered all counties to rely undated ballots in future elections,” whereas different plaintiffs have been now in search of to “invalidate Pennsylvania’s legislation requiring mail-in ballots to be positioned in secrecy envelopes.”

As a result of Mr. Ritter’s case grew to become moot on its technique to the Justices, they wouldn’t get an opportunity to evaluate the deserves. Therefore, the petition requested for the Third Circuit’s ruling to be vacated. The Supreme Courtroom agreed, with the docket noting dissents from Justices

Sonia Sotomayor

and

Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Undated mail ballots are again to the established order ante.

Virtually, this merely signifies that they’ll be litigated afresh if the unlucky alternative arises after November. That’s hardly very best. As of Friday, almost 1.2 million mail ballots had been requested in Pennsylvania, based on the U.S. Elections Undertaking, and Democratic voters accounted for 72%. The state might wind up with a whole bunch of undated ballots that skew general for Mr. Fetterman. Perhaps People ought to all be saying the election administrator’s prayer: Lord, let any individual win a landslide.

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s greatest and worst from Kim Strassel, Jason Riley and Dan Henninger. Picture: Jim Bourg/Reuters

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Pennsylvania

Bill to ensure access to contraception advances in Pennsylvania, aided by dozens of GOP House votes

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

Bill to ensure access to contraception advances in Pennsylvania, aided by dozens of GOP House votes

Planned Parenthood PA Advocates executive director Signe Espinoza called the proposal “an enormous shift toward control over our bodies.”

“We must have control over if and when we decide to start our families, but Pennsylvania has for too long allowed loopholes, exemptions and oversights to stand between us and our autonomy,” Espinoza said in a statement.

Rep. Krueger said in an interview Monday that she also was concerned about Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion access two years ago. Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” including cases that found married people have the right to obtain contraceptives, people can engage in private, consensual sex acts and the right to same-sex marriage.

A state law could help people obtain contraceptives if federal law changes, Krueger said.

“We have seen that access to reproductive health care, including contraception, is coming down to a state’s rights issue,” Krueger said.

In other states, contraception has been a politically contentious issue. A review earlier this month by the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for abortion access, found several states have proposed or enacted laws to reduce access to contraception this year.

KFF, a nonprofit that studies health care issues, said in May that 14 states have legal or constitutional protections for the right to contraception, with six states and Washington, D.C., enacting them since the high court’s decision on abortion in June 2022.

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Pennsylvania

Pa. woman who drowned after being swept over waterfall in Glacier National Park is ID’d

Published

10 hours ago

June 25, 2024

Press Room

Pa. woman who drowned after being swept over waterfall in Glacier National Park is ID’d

A 26-year-old Pennsylvania woman drowned after being swept over a waterfall on the east side of Glacier National Park in Montana, park officials said.

National Park Service officials on Tuesday identified the victim as Gillian Tones from North Apollo in western Pennsylvania’s Armstrong County. She was remembered as caring and kind, triblive.com reported.

Tones fell into the water above St. Mary Falls at around 5:20 p.m. Sunday. She was washed over the 35-foot (11-meter) tall waterfall and trapped under water for several minutes, the park said in a statement.

Bystanders pulled Tones from the water and administered CPR until emergency responders arrived. She was declared dead at 7 p.m., park officials said.

The death is under investigation, and an autopsy was planned.

Her name was initially withheld until family members could be notified.

Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in Glacier National Park, according to the National Park Service.

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