Republican-led Pennsylvania court deems mail-in voting law unconstitutional

A Republican-led Pennsylvania court on Friday ruled that the state’s mail-in voting law is unconstitutional.

Driving the news: Three Republican judges sided with Republican challengers and ruled that no-excuse mail-in voting is prohibited under the state’s constitution. Two Democrats on the panel dissented.

• Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf will likely appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, triggering a stay and leaving the law in place while the high court considers the case, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Republicans, led by former President Trump, pushed baseless claims about mail-in voting and fraud after the 2020 election when the state went to President Joe Biden and cast doubt on the voting law.

The big picture: The Pennsylvania state legislature passed a law in 2019 with bipartisan support to allow no-excuse mail voting for all voters, AP reports.

• Before the 2019 law, the mail-in voting option was available for individuals unable to vote in person for specific reasons.
• Republicans first sought to overturn the mail-in voting law directly after Trump’s defeat in 2020, when they unsuccessfully sought to invalidate millions of mail ballots, per the Inquirer.