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PA GOP challenges votes before polls even open

Nearly 78 million Americans voted in the 2024 election, and millions more will cast their ballots on Tuesday. Here are the races our columnists are watching and what we'll be watching for on Election Day.

opinion staff
| USA TODAY

After months – years – of anticipation and rhetoric, Election Day is finally here. After one final campaign before voters in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have reached the end of their bloody, tumultuous and, yes, unprecedented campaign.

Nearly 78 million Americans have already voted early, and millions more will go to the polls on Tuesday – including our columnists. And while all eyes are on Trump vs. Harris – either just another political contest or a fight to save American democracy, depending on who you ask – the next President of the United States is not the only race that voters are in casts its spell. Or us.

Our USA TODAY Network opinion columnists bring you live commentary, analysis and on-the-ground reporting from across the country. We dissect what we see and contextualize what you hear. We will all get through this. Together.

In Pennsylvania, the polls hadn't even opened before local election boards were already fielding thousands of challenges to the ballots of people living abroad.

Experts at Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting elections, discussed this in a media briefing Monday afternoon.

John Jones III, a former federal judge in Pennsylvania appointed by then-President George W. Bush, noted that a lawsuit filed by six Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania attempted the same maneuver last month before going to federal court was rejected.

“Thousands of ballots have been challenged,” Jones said. “So election offices have to go through these piece by piece and make a decision.”

Jones also predicted that the boards will “move on this pretty quickly and reject the challenges” as they tend to take the same approach.

The crux of the argument: Claim that state election officials are not doing enough to verify the identities of U.S. military members and their spouses who vote while stationed in other countries.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner's response last week: The congressmen waited too close to the election, lacked standing to sue and “failed to formulate a viable cause of action.”

– Chris Brennan, USA TODAY

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