Back in February, Rep. Kathy Rapp threw her support behind two election-related lawsuits in what is a year bound to be filled with election-related lawsuits.

The first, filed in state appeals court, named, among others, each of the 67 county’s boards of elections as defendants.

The case focuses on a provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution – Article VII, Section 14 – that they assert requires absentee ballots to be returned to individual precincts, rather than county elections offices.

Zimmerman and Rapp say in their legal filing that “the official guidance provided by … Department of State, and/or the practice and policy that has been adopted by each of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania” says that “absentee votes be delivered to and canvassed on a county-wide basis at the offices of the relevant county boards of elections.”

The suit states that Warren County is one of 21 counties where “the county’s board of elections receives and canvasses the absentee votes. …”

“Through necessary implication, the county board of elections — and not the election officials at the local policing place, precinct, or election district — will originally and solely canvass the absentee ballots.”

The filing details that absentee voting was first granted to Union soldiers during the American Civil War.

“To ensure the integrity and legitimacy of the electoral franchise, including her next reelection, Petitioner Rapp requests that the absentee votes be delivered to and counted at the local polling place or precinct in accordance with Article VII, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” the document states.

The Warren County Commissioners approved an agreement to hire outside counsel to represent them in this suit.

A status conference last month decided to allow a panel of the Commonwealth Court to make a decision based on the briefs filed in the case as “the most expeditious means of resolving the legal issues in dispute.”

Those briefs were submitted to the panel in an order handed down July 11, online court records show.

The second, a federal court challenge that attacks a Biden Administration executive order.

The order, according to the White House, states that federal “(a)gencies shall consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.”

It calls for a redesign of vote.gov and specifically calls for efforts to increase employee voting, equal access for voters with disabilities and military and overseas citizens as well as for those in federal custody, among other provisions.

The legislators claim that “the mandate placed upon federal agencies by Executive Order 14019 has substantially influenced the operation of Pennsylvania elections.

The Department of Justice in a filing said that granting an injunction against the executive order would interfere with federal government operations, but could also limit efforts to help eligible citizens vote….”

A motion to dismiss was granted in late March though the representatives involved in bringing the suit appealed that decision in April.