Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Relying Solely on Plain Meaning of Elections Code, Rejects Use of Signature Matching as Basis to Reject Mail In Ballots; Any Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court Unlikely to Succeed

The court was unanimous in its result (with all but one justice joining in the reasoning). Note that because this ruling relies upon the court’s interpretation of the plain meaning of the elections code, it would be very hard to take this case to the Supreme Court under the “independent state legislature” doctrine that was at play in the last PA case (when the PA court relied on the state Constitution against the legislative statute).

Republicans cannot argue to the U.S. Supreme Court that the state Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the state statute (that’s not within the authority of the US Supreme Court to say). Any argument to the US Supreme Court in a case like this would have to argue that the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause requires signature matching, assumedly on grounds that without such matching there would be fraud. I think that would be a very tough argument to make in the U.S. Supreme Court.

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