US Supreme Court orders late Pennsylvania mail-in ballots to be set aside & counted separately from overall vote tally

A US Supreme Court justice has ordered that mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania received after the Election Day deadline need to be segregated and counted separately. President Trump earlier alleged irregularities in the vote count.

In a temporary order on Friday, US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ruled that “all county boards of election” must abide by the guidance from October 28 and November 1 that requires all ballots received by mail after 8pm on the Election Day to “be segregated” and stored “in a secure, safe and sealed container separate from other voted ballots.”

Late ballots subject to the ruling will be then “counted separately,” the order states.

While Democrats have until 2pm (7pm GMT) on Saturday to respond to the decision, the order might be seen as a symbolic victory for the campaign of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly alleged that the counting process was marred with multiple irregularities.

On Thursday, Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit alleging that their poll watchers were being barred from a counting center in Philadelphia. 

Trump himself accused Pennsylvania’s electoral officials of carrying the torch for the Democratic Party, saying that “partisan Democrats allowed the ballots to be received three days after the election.”

Early on Friday, Biden flipped the Keystone state after chipping away at the incumbent’s sizable lead thanks to mail-in ballots arriving from Democrat-leaning areas.  

More gasoline was poured on the voter fraud allegations by an array of self-identified US Postal Service whistleblowers, including some from Pennsylvania, who spoke to Project Veritas. A man who claimed to be a postal worker from Erie, Pennsylvania, told the conservative muckraking group on Friday that he overheard Postmaster Robert Weisenbach Jr. speaking to another employee on Thursday about ballots that were supposed to be backdated.  

While Trump claimed that if only “legal votes” – those cast on time and by registered voters – were counted, he would have “easily won,” PA Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar sought to downplay the role of late mail-in ballots, saying earlier that they account for a “tiny fraction” of overall ballots.

Asked earlier on Friday if any such ballots had been segregated and how many, the election authorities in Philadelphia declined to answer.

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