Pennsylvania
Opinion | Oz vs. McCormick on Ballots in Pennsylvania’s Senate Race
An election employee continues the method in counting ballots for the Pennsylvania major election on the Mercer County Elections Board, Mercer, Pa., Could 18.
Picture:
Keith Srakocic/Related Press
After per week of counting ballots,
Mehmet Oz’s
lead within the Pennsylvania GOP Senate major has fallen to 992 votes. Down, down it goes, and the place it stops no person is aware of. Pennsylvania’s sluggish processing of absentee ballots is unhealthy sufficient, however each time the margin narrows, it raises the chances that this can flip into a bigger mail-vote fiasco.
As of Monday, loads of ballots have been up within the air, together with 2,000 provisional votes from each events in Allegheny County. That’s a stronghold for Mr. Oz’s rival,
David McCormick.
The 2 sides are additionally jockeying over mail ballots that voters uncared for up to now. Mr. McCormick desires them counted, since he’s profitable 32% of mail votes statewide, versus 23% for Mr. Oz, who’s urging the alternative.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom dominated two years in the past that undated ballots are invalid, even when they arrive on time. State regulation clearly says voters should “fill out, date and signal” the poll envelope. But 5 Pennsylvanians who apparently can’t comprehend primary directions sued in federal courtroom after their undated ballots have been rejected in final yr’s judicial elections.
On Friday the federal Third Circuit Courtroom of Appeals ordered that these undated 2021 ballots be counted. The judicial panel hasn’t posted its full opinion, however its judgment cites the Civil Proper Act of 1964. That regulation prohibits officers from throwing out ballots with minor errors, “if such error or omission just isn’t materials in figuring out whether or not such particular person is certified underneath State regulation to vote.” Within the Third Circuit’s opinion, a lacking handwritten date on a well timed poll is “immaterial.”
Now counties are in a pickle as they think about undated ballots from final week’s major. Do they put aside such votes, because the state Supreme Courtroom stated? Do they observe the Third Circuit’s view of a 2021 election, although the ruling might be appealed?
The figures look small, however there’s an opportunity they might be decisive if Mr. Oz’s lead continues to drop. Allegheny County says it has 42 undated GOP ballots. Montgomery County has 46, which can keep “unopened whereas we await steerage from the Pennsylvania Division of State and any potential authorized motion.” What if some counties depend undated ballots and others don’t?
The worst consequence can be if a federal courtroom finally ends up choosing the winner. In any case, state legislatures shouldn’t look ahead to situations like this to explode sometime, someplace. Undated ballots and the like are the brand new hanging chads, a supply of indeterminacy, which is election poison. In the event that they flip the end result, either side can plausibly argue they gained.
As for the Third Circuit’s argument, does it apply to different goofs? Pennsylvanians are supposed to place mail ballots into unmarked secrecy envelopes, which go contained in the return envelopes. If a “bare poll” is distributed in, it’s rejected. In 2020 the state Supreme Courtroom upheld that regulation. Would the Third Circuit name an enveloping error “immaterial”? Allegheny County has 658 bare ballots for each events. One other 14 have “figuring out marks on the secrecy envelope.”
Optimistically the U.S. Supreme Courtroom will tidy up the Third Circuit’s mess, and state legislatures will act earlier than 2024 to make clear muddled legal guidelines on mail voting. But when that fails, look out for extra ballot-counting chaos, and extra public distrust in election outcomes.
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Pennsylvania
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.
Pennsylvania
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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RADNOR TOWNSHIP, PA — Conestoga Road in Radnor Township will have a weekday closure due to Aqua Pennsylvania work for about two months, PennDOT said.
According to PennDOT, a weekday closure is scheduled on Conestoga Road between Lowrys Lane and Glenbrook Avenue in Radnor.
The closure will be in place weekdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Monday, July 1 to Friday, Aug. 30,
During the closure, drivers will be detoured, using Sproul Road/Route 320, Lancaster Avenue/U.S. 30, and County Line Road.
Local access will be maintained up to the work zone.
Drivers are advised to allow extra time when traveling through or near the work area because backups and delays will occur.
All scheduled activities are weather dependent.
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