A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the lawsuit filed by six Republican members of Congress that sought to block the counting of absentee ballots cast by Pennsylvanians who are overseas, including active-duty members of the military.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner wrote in his dismissal that the plaintiffs — U.S. Reps. Lloyd Smucker, Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Mike Kelly, G.T. Thompson and Scott Perry — had no legal standing to sue Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and one of his deputies, especially with so little time before Election Day.
Editor's note: This story was updated on Oct. 27 to remove an incorrect hyperlink.
Another listed plaintiff was PA Fair Elections, led by Heather Honey, a Lebanon County native that VoteBeat described as a frequent source of false and misleading information after the 2020 election.
Attorneys Erick Kaardal and Karen DiSalvo had asked the court to order county boards of elections to segregate all overseas ballots cast under the U.S. Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act until local officials could verify the identity and eligibility of each voter.
Conner said to do so would “upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters…”
During oral arguments on Oct. 18, Conner addressed Kaardal’s repeated claims that foreign countries would attempt to exploit the overseas voting process to influence the U.S. election.
“Plaintiffs cannot rely on phantom fears of foreign malfeasance to excuse their lack of diligence,” Conner wrote.
Smucker, who represents Lancaster County and the southern half of York County, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Kaardal or DiSalvo.
