A federal judge in Pennsylvania Friday denied a GOP-led effort to toss votes within a county that let voters fix errors on their absentee ballots, The Hill reported.
District Court Judge Timothy Savage, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, rejected the lawsuit — a decision that came two days after he'd been dubious about the GOP arguments.
According to Politico, Savage’s skepticism came out in an exchange with a lawyer for GOP congressional candidate Kathy Barnette during a Wednesday hearing in Philadelphia.
Lawyer Thomas Breth argued that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the law prohibits counties from letting voters who made a mistake on their ballot to complete or package their mail-in ballots to correct those errors.
''I’m not sure about that," Savage said, Politico reported. "Is that exactly what was said, or is what was said was that there is no mandatory requirement that the election board do that? ... Wasn’t the legislative intent of the statute we are talking about to franchise, not disenfranchise, voters?"
Breth denied it was disenfranchising voters, saying they weren't allowed to "cure" their ballot unless the election code provided them with that authority.
Savage suggested a miscast absentee vote blocked a voter from fixing it or casting a different ballot at the polls. "It counts as your vote, but your vote is not counted?" he asked of that notion.
The lawsuit focused on the practice in Montgomery County, a suburb of Philadelphia, that allows voters to correct their "naked ballots" and others with technical issues.
Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, remains counting thousands of ballots sent by mail. The state, which has 20 electoral votes, could determine the outcome of the presidential election.
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