Pa. judges reject Delco Dems' appeal on provisional ballots
The state Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition by Delaware County Democrats to order the county to allow 1,160 people registered to vote by a grassroots group that is under investigation to cast unchallenged conventional ballots at voting machines Tuesday.
The state Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition by Delaware County Democrats to order the county to allow 1,160 people registered to vote by a grassroots group that is under investigation to cast unchallenged conventional ballots at voting machines Tuesday.
County Democrats sought the emergency order in the wake of Friday's decision by the bipartisan Voter Registration Committee to allow the 1,160, along with several thousand others, to vote only by provisional ballot.
The Democrats had contended that since a provisional ballot would be subject to disqualification, it "is not a legally acceptable alternative to the casting of a regular ballot."
In a unanimous decision, the high court rejected their arguments.
County election officials were not available for comment immediately.
Friday's action by the election panel followed raids by state police of two FieldWorks LLC offices, searching for evidence of voter-registration fraud.
After the first raid in Norwood, Delaware County, Republicans questioned the legitimacy of more than 7,000 registrations submitted by FieldWorks, alleging many were incomplete or possibly fraudulent.
It was not clear why the petition filed Monday referred to only 1,160 of the registrations, nor how many of those would have been Democratic.
FieldWorks, a national firm, works mostly with Democrats.
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