We are still dumbfounded that, in the year 2020, elected officials are actively trying to make it harder for citizens to vote. Like in Pennsylvania, where the GOP-led Legislature prevented the 2.5 million no-excuse absentee ballots from being counted before Election Day (which means all those votes could only start to be counted on Nov. 3) and fought to get rid of ballot drop boxes. And where, right now, a Republican state senator is suing to have ballots received after Election Day disqualified.
Normally, such a thing would be a footnote to us here in West Virginia: A national headline that may or may not affect us, but that we have no control over or impact on. Except that this time, our attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, signed on to a “friend of the court” brief supporting the attempt to have thousands of votes discounted. And since Morrisey is our state’s elected official, this matter has become our business.
We have some choice words to describe Morrisey’s actions, none of which are printable, so we’ll just say that we are extremely disappointed that West Virginia’s attorney general is using the weight of his office to help disenfranchise voters in another state, simply because he does not like the results of that state’s election.
The issue at hand is a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allowed ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3 to be received up to three days after Election Day and to give the benefit of the doubt to mailed ballots that were not clearly postmarked but received within that three-day window. In a normal year, any absentee ballots would have to be received by Election Day in order to count in Pennsylvania. But given the pandemic, the enormous increase in vote-by-mail and postal delays made worse over the summer, the state supreme court made the decision to enfranchise as many voters as possible. The U.S. Supreme Court was unable to give a definitive ruling on an earlier lawsuit that also contested the extension.
Here’s where we take issue: Considering the entire basis of our government is that the citizenry votes to elect its officials, one would think that our elected officials would do everything in their power to make voting easier and more accessible. The power of the people to vote is what defines our democracy — it’s what makes us a shining example to the rest of the world. That the very people we elected would use their power to take away our ability to vote — and unnecessarily call into question the validity of our votes — is disgusting.
And finally, suing to have votes disqualified after the winner has been declared disenfranchises voters and is the political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum. We suspect that if the mountain of absentee ballots had been marked in Trump’s favor, there probably wouldn’t be a lawsuit to have them nullified. And if there were, Morrisey — a very vocal Trump ally — would not have given his support to it. As it is, Trump actively dissuaded his supporters from voting absentee or by mail, which means that mailed ballots naturally favored Joe Biden; attempts to disqualify absentee ballots blatantly targets and attempts to disenfranchise Democratic voters. This lawsuit is naked partisanship at the best and an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy at the worst.
