Pennsylvania high court takes over another election lawsuit

Pennsylvania’s highest court on Tuesday said it will take over another election-related lawsuit, this one filed by the state Democratic Party amid a partisan fight over fixing glitches and gray areas in the battleground state’s fledgling mail-in voting law.

Briefs are due Sept. 8, the state Supreme Court said.

The Democratic Party’s lawsuit asks the court to order an extension of Pennsylvania’s Election Day-deadline to count mailed-in ballots, a similar request to one in a lawsuit already taken up by the state Supreme Court.

Among other things, it also asks the court to allow the use of satellite election offices and drop boxes — which Philadelphia and its heavily populated suburbs used in the primary to help relieve the pressure from an avalanche of mailed-in ballots.

Philadelphia and its surrounding counties are again planning to use both satellite election offices and drop boxes in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled Legislature are at a stalemate over some of the issues, with just two months before the election barely two weeks before counties can begin sending out ballots to voters.

The case was filed last month by the state Democratic Party and had been pending in a lower court. The defendant, Wolf’s top election official, asked the high court last month to take over the case.