The Supreme Court on Friday evening cleared the way for some voters in Pennsylvania whose mail-in ballots had been deemed invalid to cast provisional ballots in person, rejecting an appeal by Republicans not to count such votes.
The decision was unsigned and gave no reasoning, which is common in such emergency petitions.
The decision could affect thousands of mail-in ballots in a state that is crucial to each party’s path to victory in the presidential contest and could be consequential in determining control of the Senate. The latest polls show Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump virtually tied there, and their campaigns have poured more money and time into Pennsylvania than any other state.
The ruling, which thrust the justices into a hotly contested legal fight in a critical battleground state, was among a flurry of decisions by the court this week related to the presidential election.
On Tuesday, the court refused to allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his independent bid for the White House in August, to remove himself from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, two other major swing states. On Wednesday, the justices cleared the way for Virginia to purge about 1,600 registered voters who state officials claim may be ineligible because they were flagged in state databases as noncitizens.
At issue in Pennsylvania is whether voters who erred in submitting their absentee ballots should be allowed to cast provisional ballots in person. The absentee ballots were deemed invalid because voters did not sheath them in secrecy sleeves, as is required under state law, before mailing them.
Republicans had repeatedly indicated they would appeal to the Supreme Court, asking it to reject the provisional ballots and saying that the decision should be left to the state legislature alone.
