Trump Campaign Says Voting Groups Can’t Join in Ballot Suit

The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the NAACP Pennsylvania Conference shouldn’t be allowed intervene in a lawsuit to help the commonwealth defend its no-excuse mail-in ballot law, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign urged a federal judge.

The groups, joined by Common Cause Pennsylvania and a trio of individual women, haven’t identified any interest in the actual election process that would support their intervention in the lawsuit brought by Trump for President Inc., according to the campaign’s motion filed Thursday.

The groups haven’t identified any authority in the Pennsylvania Election Code that gives them the right to handle third-party ballots, or otherwise administrate or monitor elections, the campaign said.

The campaign sued a swath of Pennsylvania county boards and election officials in June. It alleges that the state’s decision to use drop-off boxes for absentee ballots and mobile ballot collection centers will increase the risk of voter fraud in the November election.

The matter is pending before Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The groups argued in their July 15 motion to intervene that their commitment to voter registration, education, and turnout justifies their intervention in the lawsuit.

But allowing the voting groups to intervene “will bog down an otherwise straightforward challenge by political parties, candidates and voters who have been and will be injured by Defendants’ misadministration of the Pennsylvania Election Code,” the campaign said Thursday.

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP and Elections LLC represent the Trump campaign. The ACLU Foundation of Pennsylvania and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, the Public Interest Law Center, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law represent the special interest groups.

The case is Trump for President v. Boockvar, W.D. Pa., No. 20-cv-00966, response in opposition 7/23/20.