Via the Philadelphia Inquirer: Six GOP congressmen sue to have Pa. military and overseas ballots set aside in November election.
Six Republican members of Congress are suing the Pennsylvania Department of State, arguing that ballots from overseas voters — including members of the U.S. military — are susceptible to fraud because those voters are not subject to ID requirements applied to U.S.-based absentee voters.
None of the six lawmakers, who represent Pennsylvania, voted to certify the 2020 election results, and the lawyers working with them were involved in the election-denial efforts in 2020.
Several election-law experts called the suit a voter-suppression play that faces little chance in court given its last-minute filing before the highly consequential presidential election in Pennsylvania.
There was a time when the overseas ballots of members of the armed services were treated as almost sacrosanct. That Americans serving in uniform away from home had a sacred right to have their ballots counted just like the rest of us comfortably voting from home.
But, I guess, when Pennsylvania in on the line, and could be the linchpin of it all, a bunch of Representatives who didn’t respect the voters in 2020 are more than happy to take fake “election integrity” arguments and apply them to the ballots of service members.
“This is not designed to fix a problem that actually exists,” David Becker, of the nonpartisan Center for Election and Innovation, said of the lawsuit. He sees it as a move to sow distrust ahead of the election.
[…]
“This is a dangerous political stunt,” Becker said. “If Congress thought UOCAVA needed clarification or additional requirements, what have they been doing? It’s just an incredible self-indictment of their legislative responsibilities.”
I would note that Republicans are constantly the ones trying to make it harder to vote. They are constantly willing to risk disenfranchising American citizens in the name of “election integrity.”
See, also, this DOJ press release: Justice Department Sues Virginia for Violating Federal Law’s Prohibition on Systematic Efforts to Remove Voters Within 90 Days of an Election.None of the is about election “integrity”–it is about a systematic hope that such maneuvers will deny more likely Democratic voters than Republicans ones from being able to vote. And, beyond that, it is simply the case that voters should have a reasonable opportunity to correct their registration if the state incorrectly purges them from the rolls. That’s why doing it at the last minute is a problem.
Moreover, all of these actions help feed a narrative of doubt about our elections, which is corrosive in and of itself.
