By Matthew Santoni

Law360 (August 4, 2020, 9:50 PM EDT) -- The Democratic Party of Pennsylvania, the NAACP and other voting rights groups can step in and seek dismissal of a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump's reelection campaign challenging Pennsylvania's mail-in voting procedures, a federal judge has ruled.

In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan granted motions to intervene from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, various Democratic candidates and legislators, the NAACP, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters, Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, the Sierra Club, the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans and numerous individual voters.

"Permissive intervention is appropriate," Judge Ranjan wrote. "The proposed intervenors' requests to intervene are timely, the grounds they present share a common question of law or fact with the underlying action, and there is no undue delay or prejudice involved."

Intervention allows the parties to formally file their motions to fight the lawsuit, which challenged Pennsylvania's use of drop boxes and mobile collection drives for mail-in and absentee ballots, along with its requirement that poll-watchers live in the counties where they are monitoring votes. The court had granted the campaign an expedited hearing, currently scheduled for September, though Pennsylvania's Secretary of State, Kathy Boockvar, has sought to have the case dismissed before then.

Pennsylvania's legislature has allowed no-questions-asked mail-in voting — absentee ballots without the requirement that a voter claim that they couldn't make it to the polls on election day — since October as part of Act 77 of 2019. Many more voters than anticipated took advantage of the new voting option with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the state reported on August 1 that 1.46 million mail-in or absentee ballots were cast in the primary. Some counties set up drop boxes for those ballots to be collected rather than going through the post office or requiring them to be dropped off in person at the county elections offices, which the lawsuit claimed had violated state elections law.

Joined by the Republican National Committee, several Pennsylvania Republican members of Congress and prospective poll watchers, the campaign's lawsuit claimed in late June that the ballot drop boxes used in the primary election "diluted votes" and violated Constitutional rights by allowing potential fraud.

The Democrats were the first to seek to intervene in the case in mid-July, arguing that they had an interest in "protecting Democratic candidates in competing in a free and fair election and further protecting registered Democratic voters' rights to an effective vote." The intervenors also filed a lawsuit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, seeking a declaratory judgment that the same drop boxes were actually constitutional and allowed under the election laws, which they argued should preempt the federal case since the state court should be first to interpret state law.

The NAACP, Common Cause and League of Women Voters, represented by the ACLU, followed with their own motion to intervene, asserting that they had to protect "their own and their members' rights to vote safely in the midst of a pandemic." Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future and the Sierra Club said they have a distinct interest "in empowering traditionally underrepresented communities to participate in the electoral process," while the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans sought to intervene on the grounds that they wanted their members to "safely exercise their right to vote through the use of mail ballots" delivered to drop boxes.

The Trump campaign opposed the intervention of all but the Pennsylvania Democrats, who were granted leave to intervene by default, the judge said. Though the campaign said the rest lacked a legal interest in the dispute, Judge Ranjan said all had a common question of law or fact with the campaign's challenge.

"The proposed intervenors' interest in the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's voting procedures, mainly through the use of drop boxes for mail-in voting, goes to the heart of plaintiffs' action," he wrote.

The motions to intervene were all timely, coming between the campaign's initial filing of the lawsuit and its filing of an amended complaint July 27, and were not filed so close to the hearing as to burden the other parties, the judge said.

"While the hearing on plaintiffs' requests for declaratory relief is about two months away, the proposed intervenors will nonetheless be able to fully comply with this court's pre-hearing scheduling order, without delaying or prejudicing plaintiffs' rights, including preparation for the hearing," he wrote.

Though the campaign argued that some of the intervenors failed to follow the rules by filing a separate "pleading that sets out the claim or defense for which intervention is sought," the judge said that was merely a non-fatal technical defect and all the parties had laid out the grounds on which they sought to step into the case.

"Secure ballot drop boxes are a critical part of ensuring that all eligible Pennsylvania voters can vote in a safe, secure, and accessible election, particularly given the increased reliance on mail ballot voting during the COVID pandemic," said Suzanne Almeida, interim executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, in a statement. "Many people didn't receive their ballots in time to mail them back before the deadline. Without the drop boxes, all those people would have been forced to choose between risking their health, by voting in person, or losing their ability to vote. No voter should have to make that choice."

A representative of the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Trump campaign both declined to comment. Representatives of the Democratic Party did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"A federal court says we can fight back against a lawsuit that would put up roadblocks to mail voting," Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future said in a statement. "We joined this fight because building sustainable communities in PA means ensuring low-income communities & communities of color can safely vote."

Statements from the ACLU lauded the ruling and attacked the suit as an effort to limit mail-in voting and suppress turnout during the pandemic. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party and Democratic candidates are represented by A. Michael Pratt, Kevin M. Greenberg, Adam R. Roseman and George Farrell of Greenberg Traurig LLP, Clifford B. Levine and Alex Lacey of Dentons Cohen & Grigsby PC, and Lazar M. Palnick.

The NAACP, Common Cause and League of Women Voters are represented by Adriel I. Cepeda Derieux, Dale Ho, Sarah E Brannon, Sophia Lin Lakin and Witold J. Walczak of the ACLU, and Eleanor Davis, Jared V. Grubow, Jason H. Liss, Lori A. Martin, Christopher R. Noyes, Samantha Picans and David P. Yin of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future and the Sierra Club are represented by Eliza Sweren-Becker and Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center for Justice, and Charles A. Pascal , Jr.

Michael Crossey and the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans are represented by Justin T. Romano of Attisano & Romano.

The Trump campaign and House Republicans are represented by Ronald L. Hicks Jr., Jeremy A. Mercer and Russell D. Giancola of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, and Matthew Morgan and Justin R. Clark of Elections LLC.

The Pennsylvania Department of State and Secretary Boockvar are represented by Timothy E. Gates and Kathleen M. Kotula of the State Department's Office of Chief Counsel, Kenneth L. Joel and M. Abbegael Giunta of the Governor's Office of General Counsel, and Karen M. Romano, Keli M. Neary, Howard G. Hopkirk, Nicole Boland and Stephen Moniak of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.

The case is Donald J. Trump for President Inc. et al. v. Boockvar et al., case number 2:20-cv-00966, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

--Editing by Steven Edelstone.

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