PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania’s mail voting law is constitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, upholding the 2019 measure that allows any voter to use mail ballots and removing a cloud of uncertainty heading into the midterm elections.
The law dramatically expanded mail voting from a method that had been allowed only in a very small number of cases — about 5% of votes in any given election — to one used by millions over the last two years.
It was the product of bipartisan negotiations between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Republicans who control the state Legislature, the biggest change to Pennsylvania election law in generations. But its implementation in 2020 came during both the first year of the pandemic and a heated presidential election. As massive numbers of voters cast ballots by mail, state and county elections officials tried to build out the system — in some cases triggering Republican outrage and lawsuits over their decisions.
