Judge tosses GOP congressmen's lawsuit over Pennsylvania's overseas and military votes

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit by six Republican members of Congress seeking to make Pennsylvania election officials institute new checks confirming the eligibility and identity of soldiers, sailors and others who vote from overseas.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner said he agreed with the defendants — Secretary of State Al Schmidt and one of his top deputies — who argued there were no grounds to sue and that the case was launched too late and too close to Election Day.

The Pennsylvania congressmen “provide no good excuse for waiting until barely a month before the election to bring this lawsuit,” Conner wrote. More than 25,000 overseas ballots had already been sent out when the case was filed in late September, the judge noted.

The lawsuit was filed by six of the state’s eight Republican members of the U.S. House: Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, G.T. Thompson, Lloyd Smucker, Mike Kelly and Scott Perry. The other plaintiff is PA Fair Elections, a group led by Heather Honey, an election researcher whose work has fueled right-wing attacks on voting procedures.

Attorney Karen DiSalvo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an email that they were disappointed with the judge’s ruling and considering options for appeal. DiSalvo said most of the overseas voter absentee ballot requests “are likely submitted by real people who provide the required identification” but that the state should “follow the law and verify the identity and eligibility on the applications they have received.”

During a streamed update on election matters Tuesday, Schmidt said his agency “is pleased that this frivolous lawsuit was dismissed.”

Conner said the plaintiffs were asking “to impose new verification procedures the contours of which plaintiffs themselves have been unable to fully flesh out three weeks into this litigation.” He said an injunction now “would upend the commonwealth's carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters.”

During oral arguments on Oct. 18, Conner asked why the plaintiffs had not sued earlier over procedures that have been in place for years. He also pressed their lawyers to show how their clients were directly harmed by the current policies, as required for such claims.

The order issued Tuesday said the Republican congressmen had only “hypothetical concerns” about the impact overseas votes might have on their own reelection contests.

“Their status as candidates, without more, gets them nowhere,” the judge wrote.

The case could have affected thousands of ballots in Pennsylvania, a pivotal swing state in the presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

The plaintiffs had asked the judge to declare current practices illegal under federal law and to order that the secretary of state's office confer with the congressmen and PA Fair Elections about how to verify the identity and eligibility of people casting votes under the U.S. Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. They also asked to have overseas and military ballots segregated during the current election season pending the additional verification.

Lawyers for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration, representing Schmidt and his deputy, had argued that the plaintiffs were saying valid votes could be diluted by improper ones, which they said would not be sufficient grounds for the judge to act. They said federal laws exempt overseas voters “from identification requirements imposed on other voters who register to vote by mail."

Military voters are more likely to be Republican, while other overseas voters tend to lean Democratic. The Democratic Party is spending money this year in an effort to boost their turnout.