Radio Recap – Court Extends PA Mail-In Ballot Deadline: 3 Days AFTER Election

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
September 18, 2020

4 min read

Election Law

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Pennsylvania court extends the mail-in ballot deadline until 3 days after Election Day.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live, we discussed a court’s ruling that extends the Pennsylvania deadline for mail-in ballots to three days after the election. That could change the entire outcome of the election. It is also rife for fraud.

There’s been a lot of discussion about mail-in voting recently, which is different from absentee voting. Absentee ballots in most states must be requested by printing off and mailing in an application within a specific timeframe in order for the election board to receive and return it in time. The postal service has been advising everyone who needs an absentee ballot to get those applications out as quickly as possible. That’s bipartisan by the way. Both parties are saying that if you’re planning on using an absentee ballot, request it quickly, and once received, fill it out and return it as soon as possible.

But now Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, the state’s highest court, has come out with an opinion that has extended the state’s mail-in ballot deadline to 3 days after the election. The election is November 3rd, but now Pennsylvania is extending the deadline for mail-in voters to November 6 at 5pm. This means that when your ballot has to be stamped by the postal service, not by just you.

In effect, this is extending Election Day for an additional three more days. Here’s what’s key: it’s not the date you marked on it, it’s the date the postal service marks on it. They also put in the opinion that if they cannot read the date that they are going to assume it met the deadline. So on top of extending the voting by three days, they have also included a provision to automatically accept ballots where the postmark is illegible. This expands the potential for fraud.

I want to make this clear, for our men and women in the military who serve overseas, there are special exceptions for them and their ballots. Oftentimes, the military absentee ballots are not counted on Election Day. They do a total of how many ballots that they have, what the outcome was in a given state, and ask if the military ballots could change the outcome of electoral votes. Then they determine if those electoral votes would impact who wins the election.

Obviously they can impact lots of state and local races, so they do get counted, but as you can imagine they don’t necessarily all get counted on Election Day in every state. Military absentee ballots aside, the move to extend Election Day in Pennsylvania and other states is rife with potential fraud.

In a state like Pennsylvania, which has a big population, there could be so many outstanding possible legal ballots, that they can’t really tell us much about the election results until after November 6th.

It's also important to reiterate, as I said on air, I’ve worked on a number of political campaigns and have had to vote absentee twice in the past in presidential elections. It is extremely important to look at and follow the rules in your state, even down to using the right color of ink. Even just signing in the wrong place on the ballot, or if you mark two boxes in the same row, your ballot will be tossed out. They don’t have time to figure out your mistakes. You want your vote to count.

So for those of you are planning to vote absentee, pay attention to the proper procedures, follow them in order to make sure that your ballot will be counted, and again, send your ballot back quickly.

The full broadcast is complete with much more discussion and analysis by our panel about the ramifications of the court in Pennsylvania extending the mail-in ballot deadline to 3 days after the election. We were also joined by ACLJ Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy, Ric Grenell. Ric has a new blog up, entitled President Trump’s Style Is Working. Check it out here.

Watch the full broadcast below.