A state judge Friday rejected a request from U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, and another Republican lawmaker to toss out some provisional ballots.

The ballots, also known as “cured,” were those made after counties allowed voters who erred in completing or packaging their mail-in ballots to correct those mistakes.

These mail-in ballots can be marked deficient for a number of reasons — including “naked” ballots where the secrecy envelope is not used — and are therefore rejected.

Instead of tossing the ballots away, state Judge Kevin Brobson ordered the segregation and recount of those cured ballots.

Kelly and the other plaintiffs filed the suit Tuesday night in the Commonwealth Court, which is the state’s intermediate appellate court.

In a statement issued Friday, Kelly said he was pleased with Brobson’s order.

“The unprecedented number of mail-in ballots this year has caused concern over the integrity of the election, so we must do all we can to assure Pennsylvanians that each vote that was cast was done so lawfully,” Kelly said.

The order states, “All provisional ballots cast on Election Day where the elector’s absentee ballot or mail-in ballot was timely received by the county boards of elections be segregated and secured from other provisional ballots pending compliance with the procedures set forth in Section 1210 of the Election Code 1 for determining (a) the validity of the provisional ballot, and (b) whether the provisional ballot, if valid, can be counted.”

Brobson additionally ordered Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar to distribute his order to all county board of elections in the state.

In a news conference Thursday night, Boockvar said she trusted all the election bureau directors acted professionally and within the scope of the law. She also told reporters that the provisional ballots received after 8 p.m. Tuesday were being segregated.

Some estimates Thursday night said some of the most populated counties in the state had around 500 of these ballots in question while others had zero.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that seven counties — Bucks, Erie, Leigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, Philadelphia and York — had contacted voters or informed party representatives about inadequate ballots, leading to provisional ballots that allowed voters to still vote.

Kelly’s lawsuit asserts that the state’s current method of ameliorating issues with mail-in ballots, which includes having the voters fill out a provisional ballot, contradicts state law.

Attorney Jordan Shuber, along with other lawyers in his firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham, helped file the request.

“This is big,” Shuber said, applauding the judge’s decision. “We just want to make sure provisional ballots were counted correctly.”

Shuber said the move wasn’t meant to disenfranchise voters.

“The concern has always been making sure every vote is counted and that’s in line with what’s being discussed across the country,” Shuber said.

Shuber didn’t know how many ballots this would cause to be recounted but he said that “It has potential to have impacts across the state.”

He continued, “We won’t know until we have opportunity to review them. Before this order there was no opportunity to review them.”

Aaron Sheasley, director for the county Bureau of Elections, couldn’t be reached for comment in time for publication to talk about how the order might impact Butler County. A spokesperson with the Department of State said they were “complying” with the order.

In a news conference Friday, state House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-100th, and state Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-34th, took issue with the way the Department of State ran the election.

“No matter who wins, you’re going to have 50 percent of the population that’s not going to have faith in the result,” said Corman, who called for Boockvar’s resignation Tuesday.

Both legislators pointed to a few core issues, including the cured or remedied ballots, the lack of public pre-canvassing, and that any ballots received after 8 p.m. Election Day should not have been counted.

But the state Supreme Court ruled that county election officials must receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrive up until Nov. 6, even if they don’t have a clear postmark, as long as there is no proof it was mailed after the polls closed.

The legislators also took issue with “inconsistent” guidance issued by the Department of State, which they claimed was not fully compliant with the need to segregate mail-in ballots that came after 8 p.m. Election Day from those that did.

Cutler called on Gov. Tom Wolf to produce a full audit of the 2020 election process.

“I’m less concerned about the actual winner. I’m more concerned about the process,” Cutler said.