Federal judge in Pennsylvania rejects GOP challenge to overseas voter requirements

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against GOP congressmen from Pennsylvania who filed a lawsuit against the secretary of the commonwealth over allegedly lax requirements for military and overseas voters.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the congressmen "delayed too long to file their action, they lack standing, they have failed to join indispensable parties, and they have failed to articulate a viable cause of action."

"An injunction at this late hour would upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters, to say nothing of the state and county administrators who would be expected to implement these new procedures on top of their current duties," Conner said.

Pennsylvania GOP Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, Lloyd Smucker, and Mike Kelly filed a lawsuit in federal court last month against Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt (R) and Deputy Secretary for Elections Jonathan Marks for a directive regarding the verification of the eligibility of military and overseas voters.

These voters are allowed to vote from outside the U.S. due to the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). To apply for a UOCAVA ballot, a voter must provide a Social Security number and either a state-issued driver’s license or identification number, which are used to verify the voter's identity.

However, the Pennsylvania Department of State's directive states "that Pennsylvania and federal law are clear that voter registrations may not be rejected based solely on a non-match between the applicant’s identifying numbers on their application and the comparison database numbers."

The lawmakers' lawsuit argued that the directive violates both UOCAVA and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).