State Supreme Courts Issue Ruling in Key Voting Cases
October 31st, 2020
The importance of state supreme courts has never been more evident than in recent weeks as courts in state after state resolve disputes about the upcoming election. These decisions do not always fall along predictable partisan lines.
In Texas, Republicans occupy all nine seats on the state Supreme Court, but by an 8-1 court the court rejected a last minute lawsuit brought by the Texas Republican Party and the Harris County (Houston) Republican Party in an attempt to halt drive-thru voting and significantly restrict curbside voting by requiring those seeking to vote in such a manner to first fill out an application describing their disability.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have a 5-2 majority on the Supreme Court, the court has issued a number of important election law rulings. First, it ruled that mail-in ballots that are received within three days of election day can be counted as long as they are postmarked by election day–a case which has gone up to the United States Supreme Court twice (and which the United States Supreme Court has twice let stand). Then they unanimously held that absentee ballots and ballot applications cannot be challenged or rejected due to allegedly non-matching signatures.