This story was updated at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 12.
The Trump campaign on Thursday won a case attempting to disqualify a small number of mail-in ballots for first-time Pennsylvania voters who were unable to confirm their identification by Nov. 9.
These ballots had been segregated pending the judge’s decision and have not yet been counted, so their disqualification will not affect the current vote count in Pennsylvania. Joe Biden won the state, and subsequently the election, on Saturday and currently leads President Trump by more than 53,000 votes.
Commonwealth Court President Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt ruled that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar lacked authority when she issued guidance to county boards of election to count mail ballots so long as voters’ IDs were confirmed by Nov. 12.
Ms. Boockvar argued to the court that the guidance came from a provision in the commonwealth’s election code that allows voters to prove their identities “within six calendar days following the election.” Because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the ballot deadline to Nov. 6, then the deadline for voters to confirm their ID would also be extended.
But the Trump campaign disagreed. “If the deadline is calculated as the statute is written, then as it pertains to the November 3, 2020 General Election, this deadline for voters to resolve proof of identification issues is Monday, November 9, 2020, not November 12, 2020,” the campaign wrote in a filing. They also said Ms. Boockvar lacked the authority to give such guidance.
Judge Leavitt sided with the Trump campaign on that argument. In a footnote, she said Ms. Boockvar’s position would have been achievable if there was an amendment to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order extending the ballot deadline.
It is not clear how many mail-in and absentee ballots fall into this category, and the Pennsylvania Department of State declined to comment on how many ballots would be affected. However, these ballots only applied to first-time voters whose identities had not been confirmed prior to the Nov. 9 deadline.
