Judge halts Trump campaign’s mail-voting lawsuit against Pennsylvania

A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Sunday halted the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against the state over how it sends and counts mail-in ballots.

Nicholas Ranjan of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Pennsylvania, who was appointed by President Trump, ruled Sunday that Trump’s lawsuit against the secretary of state and 67 county election boards should be put on hold while state court cases about voting move forward, CNN reported. 

“After carefully considering the arguments raised by the parties, the Court finds that the appropriate course is abstention, at least for the time being. In other words, the Court will apply the brakes to this lawsuit, and allow the Pennsylvania state courts to weigh in and interpret the state statutes that undergird Plaintiffs’ federal- constitutional claims,” Ranjan reportedly wrote Sunday. 

The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and four Pennsylvania Republican members of Congress — Glenn Thompson, Mike Kelly, John Joyce and Guy Reschenthaler — had filed the lawsuit at the end of June. 

Ranjan had previously said Trump needed to provide evidence of fraud in Pennsylvania voting this year because Democrats had sought it, according to CNN. 

The lawsuit over Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting, which the state expanded last year to allow anyone to vote by mail without a reason, comes as Trump continues to bash mail-in voting and repeat unfounded claims that it leads to voter fraud. 

“The President’s fight against the problems of Pennsylvania’s radical new vote-by-mail system has been running on parallel tracks in state and federal court for some time,” Trump campaign deputy manger Justin Clark said in a statement in response to the judge’s decision to pause the case.

“The judge’s stay today is simply a recognition that the multitude of issues surrounding Pennsylvania’s dangerous voting system—including ballot harvesting and double voting—touch both federal and state constitutional issues. The federal court is simply going to reserve its judgment on this in the hopes that the state court will resolve these serious issues and guarantee that every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted—once,” Clark added.