The United States of America has both an elections problem and a judiciary problem.
When those two problems intersect, as they did on Tuesday, craziness ensues.
According to the Pennsylvania-focused news and analysis site PoliticsPA, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has required the Keystone State to count mail-in-ballots that lack proper dating.
The unanimous 3-0 ruling upheld a lower court’s decision.
Judge D. Brooks Smith, appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote the circuit court’s opinion.
“The date requirement imposes a burden on Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to vote,” the opinion read. “And it culminates in county election boards discarding thousands of ballots each time an election is held. The date requirement will not protect against the vast majority of attempts at voter fraud.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Requiring voters to write the date on their ballots “imposes a burden.”
Incredibly, the court found that discarding improperly dated ballots violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Of course it does. After all, to a modern court, any law violates voters’ constitutional rights unless it assumes that they possess the IQ of a turnip.
Should we make Election Day a national holiday and require virtually all votes to be in person with voter ID?
The circuit court’s ruling came nine days after President Donald Trump pledged to rid the country of mail-in ballots.
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election,” the president wrote last week on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump, of course, rightly railed against mail-in ballots during and after the controversial 2020 presidential election. Using the COVID scare as an excuse, elected Democrats and other establishment tools flooded the country with mail-in ballots, leading to accusations of impropriety or outright rigging.
The circuit court’s ruling certainly will not enhance confidence in the integrity of America’s elections.
Moreover, the judges’ reasoning boiled down to the ludicrous “burden” claim, as well as some inappropriate editorializing on democracy.
“Casting a ballot and having it counted are central to the democratic process. The date requirement does not play a role in election administration, nor does it contribute an added measure of solemnity beyond that created by a signature,” the opinion read.
Thus, “[w]eighing these interests against the burden on voters, we are unable to justify the Commonwealth’s practice of discarding ballots contained in return envelopes with missing or incorrect dates that has resulted in the disqualification of thousands of presumably proper ballots.”
In other words, substituting their views for the opinions of lawmakers and the voters who elected them, the three judges ruled that ballots need no dates because of “the democratic process.”
Apparently, “the democratic process” requires treating voters like imbeciles.
Federal judges, of course, have made a nuisance of themselves in recent months. Rather than granting or denying relief to individual claimants, as they ought to do in cases involving laws and their enforcement, those judges have issued sweeping injunctions, thereby usurping power not granted to them under the Constitution.
In short, after Trump eliminates mail-in ballots, perhaps he can “lead a movement” to restore judicial integrity.
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