宾夕法尼亚州哈里斯堡。-周五，一家法院宣布，宾夕法尼亚州已实施两年之久的邮寄投票法违反了州宪法，同意共和党人的质疑，他们在前总统之后对这种做法不满唐纳德·特朗普在他2020年的连任竞选中开始毫无根据地抨击它充满欺诈。
民主党州长汤姆·沃尔夫(Tom Wolf)的政府迅速向州最高法院提出上诉，立即搁置了由三名共和党法官和两名民主党法官组成的小组的党派决定，并阻止其推翻法律。
尽管如此，随着宾夕法尼亚州的选民准备在2022年选举一名新州长和一名新参议员，这使宾夕法尼亚州的投票法受到质疑。
在2020年总统选举中，超过250万人根据扩大邮寄投票的法律投票选举，其中大部分是民主党人，总共投了690万。
沃尔夫办公室表示，其上诉意味着下级法院的裁决没有立即生效，并批评共和党人试图“为特朗普毫无根据的‘大谎言’服务”而扼杀法律选举欺诈索赔。
沃尔夫办公室表示:“我们需要领导人支持消除更多的投票障碍，而不是试图让人民保持沉默。
特朗普和共和党人很快称赞了这一决定。
“宾夕法尼亚传来重大消息，伟大的爱国精神正发展到一个没人认为可能的水平。让美国再次伟大!”特朗普通过他的政治行动委员会发表声明说。
邮寄投票法已经成为竞选活动中的热门话题，几乎每个共和党州长候选人——包括投赞成票的三名州参议员中的两名——都发誓要废除它。
即使是避免重复特朗普毫无根据的选举欺诈指控的共和党人，也延续了民主党在2020年总统选举中作弊的想法，例行公事地歪曲州法官和官员在解决法律纠纷和邮寄投票法问题时的行为是“违宪”或“非法”的。
在周五的决定中，三名共和党法官同意共和党挑战者的意见——包括11名实际投票支持该法律的议员——并裁定，在宪法修改允许之前，州宪法禁止无借口邮寄投票。
小组中的两位民主党人持不同意见。将审理上诉的州最高法院拥有民主党5比2的多数席位。
宾夕法尼亚州司法部长乔希·夏皮罗是民主党人，正在竞选州长。他说，他有信心州最高法院会支持邮寄投票法，认为它符合宪法。
他批评下级法院的意见是“基于扭曲的逻辑和错误的推理”和“法律上的错误”。
最终，任何废除该法律的决定都不会影响过去四次选举中根据该法律已经投下的数百万张选票。
2019年，共和党控制的立法机构授权所有选民进行无借口邮寄投票，扩展了州宪法中要求州在特定情况下为选民提供选择的条款。
这些情况包括出差、生病、身体残疾、选举日职责或宗教仪式。
除了一个人，所有共和党议员都在与沃尔夫的交易中投票支持这项立法，沃尔夫曾寻求邮寄投票条款。作为交换，沃尔夫同意放弃共和党人寻求的直接投票选项，以保护他们郊区的候选人免受2020年选举中反特朗普浪潮的影响。
宪法没有明确规定立法机关不能将缺席投票扩大到其他人。
然而，共和党挑战者表示，宪法旨在严格限制缺席投票，引用了一段话，称选民必须在选举区居住至少60天，在那里他们“将主动投票。”
在该意见中，三名共和党法官表示同意，称该段落在之前的两项州最高法院判决中被引用，这两项判决使1839年和1923年通过的扩大缺席投票的法律无效。
持不同意见的民主党人表示，宪法的一项单独条款授权立法者提供无借口邮寄投票。该条款规定选举“应通过投票或法律规定的其他方式进行。”
宾夕法尼亚州立大学迪金森法学院教授宪法的副教授拉夫·唐纳森说，他不同意大多数人的观点。
唐纳森说，有一点是，将宪法解读为限制缺席投票的权利是没有意义的。唐纳森说，在投票问题上，宪法通常不是这样运作的。
此外，宪法似乎直截了当地赋予立法者以任何方式规定投票的权力，这不能被宪法的另一项条款否定，他说。
除了在2020年的大部分时间里毫无根据地攻击邮寄投票之外，特朗普后来还在没有证据的情况下声称，在包括宾夕法尼亚州在内的关键战场州，选举是从他那里窃取的。
美联社对宾夕法尼亚州和特朗普质疑2020年输给乔·拜登总统的其他五个战场州的潜在选民欺诈案件进行了调查，发现案件数量很少。
该州67个县中的11个县的选举官员共发现了26起可能的选民欺诈案件，占拜登胜率的0.03%。他在宾夕法尼亚州以8万多张选票击败了特朗普。
在2020年的一次选举后诉讼中，共和党人试图使邮寄投票法无效，并扔掉该法下的所有选票，以推翻民主党人乔·拜登在宾夕法尼亚州的胜利。
该州最高法院将其驳回，称原告“未能尽职尽责地采取行动”，等待挑战法律，直到特朗普输掉选举。
美国最高法院拒绝了干预的上诉。
Court throws Pennsylvania's mail-in voting law into doubt
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A court declared Friday that Pennsylvania's expansive 2-year-old mail-in voting law violates the state constitution, agreeing with challenges by Republicans who soured on the practice after former PresidentDonald Trumpbegan baselessly attacked it as rife with fraud in his 2020 reelection campaign.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration swiftly appealed to the state Supreme Court, immediately putting the party-line decision by a panel of three Republican and two Democratic judges on hold and stopping it from overturning the law.
Still, it throws Pennsylvania's voting laws into doubt as the presidential battleground state's voters prepare to elect a new governor and a new U.S. senator in 2022.
Just over 2.5 million people voted under the law's expansion of mail-in voting in 2020′s presidentialelection, most of them Democrats, out of 6.9 million total cast.
Wolf's office said its appeal means the lower court ruling has no immediate effect, and criticized Republicans as trying to kill the law “in the service of the ‘big lie’” of Trump's baselesselectionfraud claims.
“We need leaders to support removing more barriers to voting, not trying to silence the people," Wolf's office said.
Trump and Republicans quickly lauded the decision.
“Big news out of Pennsylvania, great patriotic spirit is developing at a level that nobody thought possible. Make America Great Again!” Trump said in a statement through his political action committee.
The mail-in voting law has become a hot topic on the campaign trail, with nearly every Republican candidate for governor — including two of three state senators who voted for it — vowing to repeal it.
Even Republicans who avoid repeating Trump’s baseless election fraud claims have perpetuated the idea that Democrats cheated in the 2020 presidential election, routinely distorting the actions of state judges and officials as “unconstitutional” or “illegal” in settling legal disputes and questions over the mail-in voting law.
In Friday's decision, the three Republican judges agreed with GOP challengers — including 11 lawmakers who actually voted for the law — and ruled that no-excuse mail-in voting is prohibited under the state constitution, until the constitution is changed to allow it.
The two Democrats on the panel dissented. The state Supreme Court — which will hear the appeal — has a 5-2 Democratic majority.
Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who is running for governor, said he is confident the state Supreme Court will uphold the mail-in voting law as constitutional.
He criticized the lower court's opinion as “based on twisted logic and faulty reasoning” and "wrong on the law.”
Ultimately, any decision to throw out the law would not affect the millions of votes already cast under it in the past four elections.
In 2019, the Republican-controlled Legislature authorized no-excuse mail-in voting for all voters, expanding upon a provision in the state constitution that required the state to provide the option for voters in specific circumstances.
Those circumstances include being out of town on business, illness, physical disability, election day duties or religious observance.
Every Republican lawmaker, except one, voted for the legislation in a deal with Wolf, who had sought the mail-in voting provision. In exchange, Wolf agreed to get rid of the straight-ticket voting ballot option that Republicans had sought as a way to protect their suburban candidates from an anti-Trump wave in 2020's election.
The constitution does not explicitly say that the Legislature cannot extend absentee voting to others.
However, Republican challengers say the constitution intended that absentee voting be strictly limited, citing a passage that says voters must live in an election district for at least 60 days where they "shall offer to vote.”
In the opinion, the three Republican judges agreed, saying that passage had been cited in two prior state Supreme Court decisions invalidating laws passed in 1839 and 1923 to expand absentee voting.
The dissenting Democrats say a separate provision of the constitution empowered lawmakers to provide no-excuse mail-in voting. That provision says elections “shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law.”
Raff Donelson, an associate professor of law at Penn State’s Dickinson Law School who teaches constitutional law, said he disagreed on a couple points with the majority opinion.
One point, Donelson said, is that it doesn't make sense to read the constitution as restricting the right to cast an absentee ballot. On voting matters, that's not how the constitution typically works, Donelson said.
Besides, the constitution seems to bluntly give lawmakers the power to prescribe voting by any method, and that cannot be negated by another provision in the constitution, he said.
In addition to baselessly attacking mail-in voting through much of 2020, Trump also later claimed, without evidence, that the election was stolen from him in critical battleground states including Pennsylvania.
An Associated Press investigation into potential cases of voter fraud in Pennsylvania and the five other battleground states where Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 found a minuscule number of cases.
Election officials in 11 of the state’s 67 counties identified a total of 26 possible cases of voter fraud, representing 0.03% of Biden’s margin of victory. He defeated Trump in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes.
In one post-election lawsuit in 2020, Republicans sought to invalidate the mail-in voting law and throw out all ballots cast under it in a bid to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania.
The state Supreme Court threw it out, saying the plaintiffs “failed to act with due diligence” in waiting to challenge the law until after Trump lost the election.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused appeals to intervene.
