Supreme Court won’t block counting of certain provisional ballots in battleground Pennsylvania

Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday declined to freeze a decision from Pennsylvania’s highest court that required election officials to count provisional ballots cast by people whose mail ballots are invalid because they lacked mandatory secrecy envelopes.

The order from the justices means that election officials in the key battleground state must tally provisional ballots submitted on Election Day by voters who returned defective mail ballots, either because they didn’t include secrecy envelopes or failed to sign or date the outer envelope.

It’s unclear how many provisional ballots will be counted as a result of the Supreme Court’s order. In many counties, voters are notified when their mail ballot is likely disqualified and have the chance to request a new ballot or go to their polling places on Election Day to cast provisional ballots. 

Still, the presidential race in battleground Pennsylvania is tied, and winning the state is central to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure the electoral votes needed for victory.

Republicans, who sought relief from the Supreme Court, had warned that if the Pennsylvania court’s ruling was left in place, “tens of thousands” of provisional votes may be counted in a state that could decide control of the Senate and White House. They said if the justices determined a full stay of the state supreme court’s decision wasn’t warranted, they should order provisional ballots at issue to be set aside and not included in the official vote count while the legal battle plays out.

In the 2020 election, roughly 1% of returned mail ballots were rejected because they did not have secretary envelopes, according to an analysis from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.