HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans wasted no time in appealing a Pennsylvania court decision that would relax the rules for mail ballots, asking the state Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse a lower-court opinion issued one day earlier.
The state and national GOP filed an emergency request that that justices put on hold a Commonwealth Court ruling that envelopes voters use to send in mail ballots don't need to have been accurately hand-dated, as required under state law.
The Republican groups said that if the high court does not stay the order it should at least modify it to say it's not in force for the voting that concludes on Tuesday.
Commonwealth Court, in a 3-2 decision, said 69 mail ballots that lacked dates or had inaccurate dates should be counted in two Philadelphia state House of Representatives special elections held in September.
The judges emphasized they were ruling on an election that has already occurred — and involved unopposed candidates — but there's uncertainty about how it might apply to the election underway. Pennsylvania is the largest swing state in the close presidential race, and its voters are also filling a U.S. Senate seat, three statewide row offices and most of the legislature.
The rules for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have been frequently litigated in state and federal courts since absentee and mail-in ballots were allowed for all registered voters by the Legislature in 2019, on the eve of the pandemic. In March, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the requirement of an accurate, handwritten date was enforceable, and in April the state redesigned the envelopes to make it harder for voters to make dating mistakes. The state Supreme Court last month turned down an effort to throw out the dating requirement, and said on Oct. 5 it would not revisit the issue.
The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania argued the decision came down too close to Election Day, county boards of elections should have been allowed to weigh in, and the state Supreme Court has recently ruled the other way about the same topic.
“Without this court's intervention, county boards will thus likely count undated ballots the General Assembly has said must not be counted,” they wrote in the filing made Thursday. They warned that the uniform date requirement may be applied in different ways across the state.
“There is no excuse — none — for the majority rushing to invalidate the General Assembly's date requirement less than a week before the 2024 General Election,” they wrote in the emergency application for extraordinary relief.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court gave other parties until early Friday to respond.
In two decisions over the past two months, the state Supreme Court left the exterior envelope date mandate in place and indicated the high court did not want existing laws or procedures changed in substantial ways “during the pendency of an ongoing election.”
The Commonwealth Court majority said the requirement for accurate exterior envelope dates, which are not needed to determine if a ballot has arrived in time, runs afoul of the state constitutional provision that elections must be free and equal and no civil or military power can interfere with the “free exercise of the right of suffrage.”
FILE - Allegheny County Election Division Deputy Manager Chet Harhut carries a container of mail-in ballots from a secure area at the elections warehouse in Pittsburgh, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies."
“I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way," Harris said before she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.
She followed up those remarks at her rally in Phoenix: “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women."
The comments by Trump come as he has struggled to connect with women voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a message centered on freedom. She's making the pitch that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow.
Trump appointed three of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, he has taken to claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and ensure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”
At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”
Then he added a new bit to the protector line. He said he told his aides: “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”
Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.
“This is just the latest on a long series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency," she said.
Harris tied Trump’s comments to his approach to reproductive rights, but Trump generally speaks more of protecting women from criminals, terrorists and foreign adversaries, in keeping with the bleak picture he paints of a country in decline.
“I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things,” Trump said during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
He seemed to tie in abortion when he first used the “protector” language in a Truth Social post and at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 20. He assured the women who would be “protected” that they "will no longer be thinking about abortion.”
The dispute showed signs Thursday of further entrenching each candidate's supporters.
It was not only women who described Trump's remarks as offensive. At the Harris rally in Phoenix, Edison Kinlicheenie, 50, said he sees Trump more as a threat than a protector, noting that the former president has a track record of preying on women.
“I have a wife and a daughter, so I wouldn’t let no predator like that come around" them, Kinlicheenie said.
At a Trump rally in Albuquerque, Sarah Pyle, 41, cited the opposition to allowing transgender athletes to compete in women's events to portray Trump as someone who helps women.
“I don’t want my girls to grow up in a world like this,” the Albuquerque mother said, referring to the controversy. “We fought for women’s rights for so long, and now we’re giving them back to men. It makes no sense.”
More broadly, Trump and Republicans have struggled with how to talk about abortion rights, particularly as women around the nation are grappling with obtaining proper medical care because of abortion restrictions that have had implications far beyond the ability to end an unwanted pregnancy.
Trump has given contradictory answers about his position on abortion, at some points saying that women should be punished for having abortions and showcasing the justices he appointed. During his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters that if he were elected, he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and said he was “pro-life.”
But in recent weeks he's promised to veto a national abortion ban, after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge. He's said the states should regulate care and said some laws were “too tough.”
Since 2022, the patchwork of state laws on abortion has created uneven medical care. Some women have died. Others have bled in emergency room parking lots or became critically ill from sepsis as doctors in states with strict abortion bans send pregnant women away until they are sick enough to warrant medical care. That includes women who never intended to end pregnancies. Both infant and maternal mortality has risen.
Harris’ campaign has highlighted Trump’s statements around women. In one campaign ad, a woman who became gravely ill with sepsis after a pregnancy complication stands in front of a mirror looking at a large scar on her abdomen, as audio plays of Trump’s comments about protecting women.
Harris hopes abortion will be a strong motivator for women at the ballot box.
In early voting so far, 1.2 million more women than men have voted across the seven battleground states, according to data from analytics firm TargetSmart.
That doesn’t necessarily translate into Democratic gains. But in the 2020 presidential election, there was a 9 percentage point difference between men and women in support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters.
The Democratic ticket was supported by 55% of women and 46% of men. That was essentially unchanged from the 2018 midterms, when VoteCast found a 10-point gender gap, with 58% of women and 48% of men backing Democrats in congressional races.
Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque and Gabriel Sandoval and J.J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris departs after speaking during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a campaign event Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two before departing Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/ Pool via AP)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board Air Force Two before departing Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/ Pool via AP)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board Air Force Two before departing Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/ Pool via AP)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves after speaking at a campaign rally at Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak during a campaign rally at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)