RNC abandons lawsuit against Montgomery County that could have slowed mail ballot counting

The Republican National Committee dropped a lawsuit against Montgomery County after acknowledging the county had completed adequate testing of ballots and machines before it mailed ballots to voters last month.

The RNC had sued the county last month, saying election officials had made ballots available before completing state-required logic and accuracy testing on voting machines. The county said at the time that it had completed all testing of ballots before making them available to voters and that it also tested the machines that count mail ballots after making ballots available in person but before mailing ballots out.

When the lawsuit was filed, the Pennsylvania Department of State criticized the suit as frivolous and said Montgomery County had completed all required testing before it printed ballots and made them available.

In a filing last week, the RNC dropped its request that Montgomery County stop sending mail ballots, agreeing that proper testing had taken place. The organization dropped the suit on Monday.

Neil Makhija, the chair of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said in a statement that the withdrawal of the suit and the failure of a separate lawsuit over voting machines filed by individual Montgomery County voters proved that “facts still matter.”

“As Montgomery County continues to be a leader in protecting the voting rights of our citizens, RNC has failed in their efforts to suppress the right to vote. Despite their objective to cast doubt on the process, the justice system has proven that their claims held no water,” Makhija said.

In a news release last week, the RNC described the litigation as an “election integrity win” and said its efforts had delayed the mailing of ballots in the county by several days. Montgomery County made ballots available in offices on Sept. 17 but did not mail ballots until after machine testing concluded on Sept. 23. The RNC’s legal team had sent a letter to Montgomery County expressing its concern on the 17th.

“Election officials must be held accountable, and that’s exactly what we’ve done in Montgomery County. Rules, safeguards, and laws are critical to ensuring there are no holes in the system that undermine voters or election integrity,” RNC chairman Michael Watley said in a statement.

The RNC filed a separate lawsuit earlier this week against the suburban county over its use of a mobile voter services van. The suit would not directly affect voters or the counting of votes, but it asked the county to stop using the van until it had publicly posted a full schedule of where and when it would be used.