By Luc Cohen
(Reuters) -A U.S. 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 U.S. House of Representatives seeking reelection on Nov. 5 had sued Pennsylvania's top election officials on Sept. 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 U.S. presidential race pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
U.S. 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 in election battleground states.
The Harris campaign cheered the decision.
"Those serving abroad to defend our democracy should be able to participate in it at home, and this ruling protects that fundamental right," a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.
In the decision, the judge 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 Oct. 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 votes counting," Kaardal had told the hearing in Harrisburg federal court over a motion to dismiss the case filed by the Democratic National Committee and Pennsylvania's top elections official.
The Election Research Institute, a conservative group whose lawyer Karen DiSalvo brought the case alongside Kaardal, said the plaintiffs were disappointed by the dismissal and were considering options for appeal.
Judges in the election battleground states of Michigan and North Carolina this month also rejected lawsuits filed by the Republican National 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.