Republican lawsuit seeks to stop mail-in voting in Montgomery County

The Republican National Committee and U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick have filed a lawsuit seeking a momentary halt to the distribution and collection of absentee ballots in Montgomery County.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, also asks county officials to hand-count all absentee ballots that have already been sent in, a procedure that could add several days to the November counting process.

Montgomery County was the first in the Philadelphia region to begin distributing absentee ballots when the county board of elections announced last Tuesday that ballots were now available, just a day after the Pennsylvania Department of State certified candidates placed on the ballot for the November general election.

In a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court along with local Republicans, the RNC argued that the county’s early start of mail-in voting violated Pennsylvania election law because ballots were distributed before the county began state-required tests of the logic and accuracy of its election systems.

Testing is required before the election can begin. The RNC argued that by sending out ballots before testing, Montgomery County had started the general election.

“Notably, defendants knew that L&A testing had not been completed by September 17, 2024, and the public had stated that it would not begin until September 19, 2024,” the lawsuit says.

As a result, the RNC wants a Montgomery County judge to halt vote distribution until testing is completed and to set aside and hand-count all mailed and returned votes.

Montgomery County has emerged as a key Democratic stronghold in recent years, helping to propel the state to victory for President Joe Biden in 2020. Turnout in the key county could play an significant role in determining the outcomes of the presidential and Senate elections.

A Montgomery County spokesman said in a statement last week that the RNC misrepresented the state’s election code in a cease-and-desist letter sent before the lawsuit was filed.

“We have conducted ballot acceptance testing and are fully compliant with election code and Department of State guidelines,” county spokeswoman Megan Alt said in an email.

If the RNC’s lawsuit proves to be valid, it could significantly ponderous down the vote-counting process in Pennsylvania’s third-largest county, potentially forcing tens of thousands of votes to be hand-counted.

Montgomery County officials said last week they planned to distribute about 115,000 absentee ballots starting last week. All of the returned ballots would have to be counted by hand, which takes significantly longer than machine counting.

In April, the county experienced delays in distributing absentee ballots, and county officials said they worked diligently to fix the problem, making the county one of the fastest to distribute ballots before the general election.