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Election Review - DXXIV
Election Review - DXXIV
The counter-argument stems from invoking the SCOTUS via the equal-protection clause
[14th Amendment]; thus, state-level claims can prevail, even as the courts ordinarily don’t
intrude upon legislative behavior unless it’s unconstitutional. Here, all voters must be
treated equally, without favoritism to those who would not ordinarily comply with the PA
Constitution (absent the interim passage of Act 70 and s/p Covid-19).
The General Assembly can enact laws on “all subjects on which its
legislation is not prohibited,” including to elections under PA Constitution
Article VII; this is a discretion unfettered by rule or proviso, save the single
injunction “that elections shall be free and equal.”
1
The assertion is that this election wasn’t “equal.”
Only “[w]hen [legislators] have neither exercised their power nor attached
to [a] word any other than its ordinary legal signification” is the language
of Article VII “to be received according to its primary meaning.” [Chase]
They claim Act 70 reflects exercise of legislative power, regardless of whether any word
has been imbued with meaning beyond its ordinary legal signification; Act 70 defines what
it means to “offer to vote” {even if Petitioners claim this exceeds legal boundaries, as was
confirmed in the prior two essays}. Furthermore, the gravamen of their argument is:
2
Without an election district there can be no constitutional voting.”). Act 77
does not generate such questions. {Yes, it does, for it enlarges districts to
encompass any site from which a ballot could be mailed, regardless of
where it might be sent.} Chase also pre-dates adoption of Article VII,
Section 4 of the PA Constitution. Together, these facts show that any
reading of Chase as requiring a finding of constitutional infirmity in mail-in
voting cannot be correct. {To the contrary, it overtly violates the mandate
that, “Without an election district there can be no constitutional voting.”}
In short, Act 70 should not have permitted no-excuse voting absent passage of a
Constitutional Amendment; it’s instructive that the legislation had been introduced with
that intent, prior to conversion to a statute to expedite implementation thereof. Recall
that much of the detailed analysis of Supreme Court precedent by Hannah Leavitt wasn’t
known when the bill was passed in 2019; thus, aspersions can’t be cast upon Mastriano.
Finally, it is again advised that all of these newer assertions be meshed comfortably with
the two prior analyses [*Act 77 is Unconstitutional* and *[Act 77 Rejection Follow-Up]*].
Unencumbered by the need to provide complete legal cites [they’re in the originals]
allowed for a “conversational tone” to be adopted. Now that the primaries will have been
completed imminently, the State Supreme Court can either confirm that Act 77 violates
the Rules of Construction for a given statute, or issue a politicized opinion that would be
appealable to the SCOTUS; they can’t reasonably reject precedent by claiming its authors
were “racist” [as the Dems had argued]; germane Constitutional issues must be tackled.