Donald Trump’s marketing campaign filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania on Wednesday in hopes of briefly extending an in-person voting possibility in a single suburban Philadelphia county the place lengthy strains on the ultimate day spurred complaints that voters had been being disenfranchised by an unprepared election workplace.
The lawsuit, filed within the closely populated Bucks County, comes amid a flurry of litigation and complaints over voting in a battleground state that’s anticipated to play a central function in serving to choose the following president in 2024’s election.
The lawsuit seeks a one-day extension, by way of Wednesday at 5 p.m., for voters to use in-person for a mail-in poll.
Neighboring Lehigh County on Tuesday requested a choose to increase the deadline there by someday, by way of Wednesday, as a result of highway closures in downtown Allentown round Trump’s rally blocked entry to the elections workplace. The choose agreed.
In Bucks County, the Trump marketing campaign lawsuit stated individuals who had been in line by Tuesday’s 5 p.m. deadline to use in-person for a mail poll ought to have been allowed to get a poll, even after the deadline. Nevertheless, Bucks County’s election workplace denied voters that proper and ordered them to go away, the lawsuit stated.
“It is a direct violation of Pennsylvanians’ rights to solid their poll — and all voters have a proper to STAY in line,” the Trump marketing campaign stated in an announcement.
The Republican Nationwide Committee and the marketing campaign of Republican Senate nominee David McCormick joined the lawsuit towards Bucks County, the place Democrats management the federal government in a carefully politically divided county typically seen as a political bellwether.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration had urged counties to permit each voter who was in line by the 5 p.m. deadline to submit a mail-in poll utility. Responding to criticism and misinformation on social media Tuesday, Bucks County had stated each voter in line by 5 p.m. Tuesday could be allowed to use for a mail poll.
Bucks County officers didn’t instantly remark Wednesday.
Pennsylvania doesn’t enable early voting on voting machines in polling locations, as some states do.
However Bucks County, like different counties in Pennsylvania, permits voters to use for a mail-in poll in-person on the elections workplace and obtain it there, a time-consuming course of strained to the restrict by Trump’s exhortations to his supporters to get out and vote earlier than Tuesday’s deadline. Voters may fill it out and hand it in on the workplace.
Voters waited as much as three hours on Tuesday. These nonetheless in line at 5 p.m. had been instructed to go residence, the lawsuit stated.
The early voting angst is the newest dustup over voting in Pennsylvania, which has the most important trove of electoral votes of any battleground state and is by far the state most visited by the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets this 12 months. The runup to Election Day within the state has been marked by quite a few battles over mail ballots, some touchdown on the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
