Trump Campaign Sues Pennsylvania Over Mail-In Voting

PITTSBURGH, PA — President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, the Republican National Committee and several GOP Pennsylvania congressmen sued state and county elections officials Monday, asking a federal court to bar voting by mail in the state in the November election.

The lawsuit alleges that the way the ballot boxes were used in the June 2 primary was unconstitutional.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, was filed against Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, and the boards of elections of the state's 67 counties. Joining the Trump campaign and the RNC as plaintiffs in the case are Republican U.S. Reps. Glenn Thompson, Mike Kelly, John Joyce and Guy Reschenthaler.

The lawsuit contends that upending the election process and undermining ballot security is the single greatest threat to free and fair elections.

"Elections must be transparent and verifiable," the lawsuit states. "Yet, defendants have inexplicably chosen a path that jeopardizes election security and will lead — and has already led — to the disenfranchisement of voters, questions about the accuracy of election results, and ultimately chaos heading into the upcoming November 3, 2020 General Election.

"This is all a direct result of defendants' hazardous, hurried, and illegal implementation of unmonitored mail-in voting which provides fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos."

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants have "sacrificed the sanctity of in-person voting at the altar of un-monitored mail-in voting," exponentially enhancing the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted in the upcoming general election.

“Election integrity should not be a partisan issue, yet Democrats are consistently trying to cheat and manipulate election rules to undermine safeguards and security around the November election," Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Trump, said in a release. "President Trump is firmly committed to ensuring that every eligible person has the opportunity to vote once and that Americans’ votes are not diluted by fraud in new systems Democrats are trying to hastily push on the American people."

There was no immediate reaction to the lawsuit from Boockvar's office.

Evidence of widespread voter fraud in America is virtually nonexistent. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation has been hard-pressed to document many examples. The think tank's database lists 1,285 of what it terms “proven instances of voter fraud” in the 50 states dating back to 1979.

You can read the entire lawsuit by at this link.