Supreme Court hands Dems 11th-hour win in crucial battleground state

The Supreme Court handed the GOP a blow in a vital battleground state Friday, ruling that Pennsylvania can count backup votes when mail-in ballots are rejected.

The state's high court adopted a "controversial interpretation of important provisions" in the state's election code, the court wrote in its ruling. The court held that a provisional ballot must be counted even if the voter previously submitted an invalid mail-in ballot prior to the deadline.

The case stemmed from a dispute over mail-in ballots in the Democratic primary in Butler County. On Friday, the Supreme Court allowed voters with defective mail-in ballots to cast provisional ballots in person, in so doing dismissing a request from Republican officials to pause the state Supreme Court's ruling.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump believes he’s going to lose

The ruling was made with no dissenting opinions, however, Justice Samuel Alito said in a statement, supported by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, that the case was important, but there wasn't sufficient cause to intervene.

"This is a rejection of the Republican National Committee's arguments that would've stopped the counting of certain provisional ballots in Pennsylvania," CNN's Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic told anchor Wolf Blitzer on Friday.

She added: "I just want to say that this is a win for the more Democratic interests in the state and it comes just two days after the Supreme Court actually sided with Republicans in Virginia and allowed the purging of some 1,600 voters there who were suspected of not being citizens."