Republican lawsuit targeting Pennsylvania overseas ballot dismissed by US judge

A US judge on Tuesday dismissed a Republican lawsuit seeking to force election battleground state Pennsylvania to strengthen its procedures for verifying ballots submitted by military and overseas voters.

Six Republican members of the US House of Representatives seeking re-election on November 5 had sued Pennsylvania's top election officials on September 30. The Republicans had argued that the state was improperly exempting overseas voters from a requirement that their identity documents be verified, creating a vulnerability for fraudulent votes to be submitted.

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of closely contested states that are expected to decide the outcome of the US presidential race pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

US District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the case in Harrisburg, deciding that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their complaint given that Pennsylvania's procedures had been in place for years.

The suit was one of dozens around the country in which Republicans have challenged voting procedures or sought to purge voter rolls in what they call a push to ensure that people do not vote illegally. That legal blitz has been faltering. In the past three weeks, Trump allies have been dealt at least 11 court losses.

Conner also said Erick Kaardal, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, had not provided evidence that there had been foreign influence over Pennsylvania's overseas ballots. The judge wrote that when he pressed Kaardal for such evidence during an October 18 hearing, the lawyer "effectively conceded that all he had was concerns".

"Plaintiffs cannot rely on phantom fears of foreign malfeasance to excuse their lack of diligence," Conner wrote.

"We don't want votes from Iran or Russia or invalid vote counting," Kaardal had told the hearing in Harrisburg federal court over a motion to dismiss the case filed by the Democratic Committee and Pennsylvania's top elections official.

Kaardal did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Judges in the election battleground states of Michigan and North Carolina this month also rejected lawsuits filed by the Republican Committee seeking to block votes from some Americans living overseas.

In those cases, the Republicans argued the states improperly allowed U.S. citizens living abroad who had never lived in those states to vote there.