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.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner in Harrisburg dismissed the case, which 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.
Pennsylvania is one of a handful of closely contested states that are expected to decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Kamala Harris.
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and the Democratic National Committee had argued that the concerns raised by the lawmakers in their suit were speculative and lacked evidence, and questioned why they waited until weeks before the election to challenge a 12-year-old law.
Schmidt and the Democrats had urged the judge to dismiss the case.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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