A federal judge in Pennsylvania denied a Republican-led effort to throw out votes within a county that allowed voters to fix or “cure” errors on their absentee ballots, American Examiner reports.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Savage, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, rejected the lawsuit on Friday.
The denial came days after Savage said he was dubious of the arguments behind such a move, as 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.
Savage was skeptical about the matter in an exchange with a lawyer for GOP congressional candidate Kathy Barnette during a Wednesday morning hearing in Philadelphia on the lawsuit, according to Politico.
Attorney Thomas Breth argued that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that 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. “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?”
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