A conservative group along with several Republican state lawmakers — one from Butler County — are some of those suing two Pennsylvania counties and the state's largest city, seeking to block them from using private grants to defray the costs of the presidential election.

Led by the Pennsylvania Voters Alliance, the complaint filed Friday in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania claims Centre and Delaware counties, and Philadelphia have no legal authority to take the grants from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life.

Federal law, according to the suit, “preempts private federal election grants to counties and cities,” and CTCL, with its funding, “has essentially created a constitutionally-impermissible public-private partnership with Pennsylvania's urban counties and cities to run its federal elections on Nov. 3, 2020.”

Only states, not counties or cities, have the discretion on how to implement federal elections, the suit says.

The suit asserts that the Pennsylvania Voters Alliance has taken the legal action to ensure the “public confidence in the integrity of Pennsylvania's elections.”

The complaint, which alleges that CTCL is funded by “progressive groups,” makes it clear that the plaintiffs “do not want progressive candidates to win in the November 3 elections.”

Attorney Tom King and his firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham in Butler are co-counsel for the plaintiffs. King also serves as general counsel for the Pennsylvania Republican Party.

State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, is one of eight GOP state House members who are listed as plaintiffs. Other plaintiffs are three Republican candidates for Congress whose districts include Philadelphia, and three individuals identified as voters.

Program 'open' to all

The complaint and three other similar lawsuits filed in federal court last week in four battleground states are being funded by the Thomas More Society of Chicago, a conservative public interest law firm, through its Amistad Project.

An attorney for the non-profit firm is also representing the plaintiffs.

The defendants in the other three suits include the cities of East Lansing, Flint, Lansing and Wayne County/Detroit in Michigan; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine in Wisconsin.

The CTCL in a statement issued Thursday called the suits “baseless” and said its election funding is “an open call grant program available to every local election department in every state” in the country.

The money is intended for “a safe and healthy election,” the statement said, in the wake of COVID-19 by making available resources such as personal protective equipment and hazard pay for poll workers.

CTCL in a Sept. 1 news release noted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have committed $250 million to the organization that it says will be used for “staffing, training and equipment” to enhance voting.

“As a non-partisan organization backed by Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan officials,” the statement said, “we are confident that these frivolous charges are without merit, and look forward to continuing this critical grant program in these unprecedented times.”

Voters 'targeted'

In the Pennsylvania suit, the plaintiffs claim they are “injured by CTCL's private federal election grants because they are targeted to counties and cities with progressive voter patterns — resulting in more progressive votes and a greater chance that progressives will win.”

Philadelphia, for example, according to the suit, has received about $10 million in CTCL election grants this year. In the 2016 election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won 84.3 percent of the vote over then-GOP candidate Donald Trump.

Centre County and Delaware County have received $863,828 and $2.2 million, respectively, in CTCL grants, the suit says. Centre County voted for Clinton at a 61.58 percent rate over Trump and Delaware voted at a 50.93 percent rate over Trump.

According to the complaint, the CTCL grants given to the defendants were not approved by Congress or the Pennsylvania legislature.

“The Secretary of the commonwealth under Pennsylvania law, not CTCL,” the suit says, “apportions federal and state election grants to the counties and cities.”

In the suit, the plaintiffs noted that under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, Pennsylvania received funding to help counties with increased election expenses due to COVID-19.

“To be sure,” the suit says, “CTCL is free to directly spend its $250,000,000 private federal election grant fund to get out the vote in Pennsylvania; but, federal election law leaves discretion to the 'states,' not the counties and cities, on how to implement federal elections.”

The lawsuit is asking for the court to issue an injunction to block the defendants from accepting the CTCL grants and other similar private federal action grants.

Additionally, the plaintiffs are asking to recoup attorney's fees and other court costs.