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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday on a key concern surrounding an avalanche of mail-in ballots in the presidential battleground state, prohibiting counties from rejecting ballots because the voter’s signature on it may not resemble their signature on their registration form. Two Republican justices joined five Democratic justices in the decision. The verdict was a victory for the state’s top election official, Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who had asked the court to back her up in a legal dispute with President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican lawmakers.

U.S. Postal Service records show delivery delays have persisted across the country as millions of Americans are voting by mail, raising the possibility of ballots being rejected because they arrive too late. Postal data through Oct. 9, the latest numbers available, show nearly all the agency’s delivery regions missing its target of having at least 95% of first-class mail arrive within five days. Parts of the presidential battleground states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio fell short of delivery goals by wide margins as the agency struggles to regain its footing after a tumultuous summer. The districts that included...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday on a key concern surrounding an avalanche of mail-in ballots in the presidential battleground state, prohibiting counties from rejecting ballots because the voter’s signature on it may not resemble their signature on their registration form. Two Republican justices joined five Democratic justices in the decision. The verdict was a victory for the state’s top election official, Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who had asked the court to back her up in a legal dispute with President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican lawmakers. “County boards of elections are prohibited from rejecting absentee or...

A gun violence counselor and employee with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office shot and killed an armed man who tried to rob him at gunpoint, officials confirmed with NBC10. On Tuesday, shortly before 10 a.m., an armed 31-year-old man tried to rob another man on the 2600 block of North Napa Street in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, Philadelphia police said. The second man fired his own weapon, shooting the 31-year-old once in the chest. The 31-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. The man who shot him was not injured during the incident and has not been charged. Wednesday...

PHILADELPHIA - Here in the birthplace of American democracy, election officials are scrambling to prepare for a presidential vote they fear could plunge the nation into a historic political crisis. Philadelphia’s Board of Elections plans to move its counting operations to a 125,000-square foot space in the city’s convention center. Dozens of staffers, feeding expensive new machines to open envelopes and process mail-in ballots, will spend days tallying hundreds of thousands of votes - under intense scrutiny from partisan observers. The workers likely will discard thousands of ballots that are not properly completed or do not arrive in a special...

Former Vice President Joe Biden fell apart as the debate came to an end when President Trump challenged him on his fracking policy. Joe Biden is going to regret the answer he gave because it probably will cost him Pennsylvania. Joe Biden was defiant and proclaimed that he never said he would ban fracking. He challenged President Trump to find the tape and put on his website. The President was true to his word and after the debate posted the video of Biden countlessly saying he would ban fracking. But it got even worse for Biden as the debate started...

Trump: "Would you close down the oil industry?" Biden: "I would transition from the oil industry, yes." Trump: "That's a big statement." Biden: "That is a big statement."

A 15-year-old Pennsylvania girl is suing her local school district after she was suspended for wearing a ‘Women for Trump’ face covering and a ‘Trump the Sequel Make Liberals Cry Again’ t-shirt. Morgan Earnest, a sophomore at Mifflin County High School in the central Pennsylvania town of Lewistown, says in a lawsuit filed in federal court that her free speech rights were violated by school administrators. On October 1, the school district issued a new policy on clothing which banned students from wearing anything that contained political messaging, The Patriot News reported.

Barack Obama waves after his speech as he campaigns on behalf of Joe Biden in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 21, 2020. Supporters watch at a drive-in rally as Barack Obama campaigns on behalf of Joe Biden in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 21, 2020.

HARRISBURG — Negotiations between the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Tom Wolf to let counties begin opening mail ballots in Pennsylvania before Election Day appeared to collapse Wednesday, setting up a potential nightmare scenario that some fear could leaving the state counting millions of ballots for days after Nov. 3. The Democratic governor and legislative leaders had been negotiating behind closed doors as recently as Tuesday to change the election code after months of inaction. But the General Assembly adjourned Wednesday and is not scheduled to reconvene until Nov. 10, a week after the election. In adjourning, Republicans turned away pleas...

The Luzerne County Director of Administrative Services advised on October 8 that they had potential information of voter fraud. The county received an absentee ballot application on September 4, and after referencing the SURE System, the county discovered the applicant is deceased, according to the affidavit. The application was submitted under the name Marie Hannigan. The Department of Health notified the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections that Hannigan had been deceased since 2015. The affidavit says the signature on the application they received, did not match the signature on Hannigan’s last submitted ballot in 2014. Detectives were given a list...

----SNIP--- According to police sources, the two black males met at 27th and Cambria, where Douglass, 28, of the 2900 block of North Bambrey St., got into a car driven by Harris, 31, of the 1800 block of Harrison Street, and then they drove to the cemetery. After their encounter, which took place in the back seat of the vehicle, with the windows open, Douglass told police, Harris stood outside the vehicle and pointed a gun at Douglass, and demanded all his money. When Harris placed his gun inside his waistband, Douglass told police he thought that Harris was going...

Pennsylvania restaurant owners who were fined roughly $10,000 for opening their doors in defiance of coronavirus restrictions have been deemed not guilty. A judge in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, found Taste of Sicily not guilty in its fight against the Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus restrictions, according to Local 21 News Harrisburg. “The crux of the legal argument is that orders that have been issued by the Governor and The Department of Health are legally unenforceable. Judge Garvey agreed with that argument,” the restaurant’s lawyer Eric Winter said. The restaurant, co-owned by siblings Michael Mangano and Christine Wartluft, opened in May...

Former President Barack Obama’s appearance in Philadelphia on Wednesday will be a drive-in car rally. It’s Obama’s first in-person campaign event anywhere for the presidential election this year, Joe Biden’s campaign said. Obama will speak to the importance of early voting and will specifically address Black voters, especially Black men, the campaign said. Due to coronavirus restrictions, the event will be ticketed, without public access. The Biden campaign will offer a limited number of tickets to supporters through local campaign officials. It will also be livestreamed on the Biden campaign’s website.

Pennsylvania restaurant owners have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and were hoping to see restrictions relaxed on their businesses. An effort in the General Assembly failed again Tuesday, albeit just barely. The state House of Representatives fell short in a bid to override Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of a bill that would have eased rules on restaurants. The effort needed two-thirds of the House and fell short by two votes. John Longstreet, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association, said the defeat of the bill (HB 2513) was a blow for the industry. “The failure...

Democrats are focusing huge resources on winning the key battleground state Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral college votes in 2020, a state Hillary Clinton lost by 68,000 votes to President Donald Trump in 2016. Two weeks before election day 2020, the Real Clear Politics Average of Polls shows Biden with a 3.7 point lead over Trump in Pennsylvania. At the same time in the 2016 campaign, the Real Clear Politics Average of Polls showed Hillary Clinton with a 5.7 point lead over Trump. (Clinton’s lead over Trump was 46.2 percent to 40.5 percent on October 24, 2016, according to the...

With Amy Coney Barrett expected to join the Supreme Court as early as next week, the court’s action in a Pennsylvania voting case has heightened fears among Democrats about the court being asked to decide a post-election dispute and with it, the winner of the White House. The justices split 4-4 Monday over a Republican plea to undo a state court order and force elections officials to ignore absentee ballots received after Election Day, Nov. 3. The tie vote left the Pennsylvania court order in effect and allows mailed ballots to be counted if they are received by Nov. 6....

@paulsperry_BREAKING: Latest RCP meta-polling shows momentum shift toward Trump with Trump eating into Biden's nat'l lead by 1.5+ points and narrowing his lead in key battleground states, including Penn & NC, where 1 poll shows Trump has tied it up, while Sen. Tillis has tied up his race too

Dozens of Pennsylvania doctors have called on President Donald Trump to cancel his Erie campaign rally on Tuesday night, citing the rising number of coronavirus cases in the state. A letter signed by more than 75 physicians from around the state said such campaign events endanger public health and give a false impression that the coronavirus is “no longer with us.” The doctors also raised concerns about what they claimed was Trump spreading misinformation about the virus. The doctors urged people not to attend the rally, though many people did anyway. The letter noted that the Pennsylvania Department of Health...

President Trump at his rally on Tuesday played a video that spliced together clips of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) discussing fracking as he argued the Democratic ticket would damage the natural gas industry. “This is an original Donald Trump Broadway play,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Erie, Pa., Tuesday evening. “First time I have every pulled it out. I had it done specifically for the people of Erie because you guys like energy. You like being energy independent.” The clip includes edited clips of Biden and Harris answering questions...