The Trump campaign argued in court that these sites are tantamount to Election Day polling places, and therefore its poll watchers should be allowed. The bipartisan Philadelphia City Commission said that while some ballots are being cast in the “satellite” locations, they don’t qualify as polling places under state laws that allow for partisan poll watchers. The judge on Friday sided with the city officials.
“The very detailed Election Code contains no provision that expressly grants the (Trump) Campaign and its representatives a right to serve as watchers at ‘satellite offices’ of the Board of Elections,” Glazer wrote in a 15-page ruling.
He later added, “given their scope, timing, and purpose, the satellite offices do not constitute polling places where watchers have a right to be present under the Election Code.”
Political campaigns are allowed under Pennsylvania law to send trained poll watchers to observe vote counting and other election procedures on Election Day, including the tabulation of mail-in ballots.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, praised the ruling in a statement, saying the decision “makes clear, yet again, that the President’s wild claims don’t hold up in the court of law.”