Republicans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency order for Pennsylvania, which could lead to thousands of votes being not counted during this year’s elections in a battleground state.

The court has been asked to intervene in a dispute involving provisional ballots that Pennsylvania voters cast but were rejected because they did not follow the technical procedure set out by state law.

The high court of the state ruled, 4-3, that election officials must count provisional votes cast by voters who had their mail-in ballots voided for not having enclosed mandatory secrecy.

The Supreme Court heard the election dispute on the same day Virginia asked for the justices to intervene in a dispute about purging voter registers.

The high court issued a ruling four years ago on changes to voting rules prompted by pandemics in several states including Pennsylvania.

State and national Republicans filed a petition in the high court asking for an order to put the state court’s ruling on hold, or, failing that, a requirement that the provisional votes be separated and not counted as part of the official vote total while the legal battle is fought.

They claimed that the law did not allow voters to re-do their ballots if they made mistakes.

The outer envelopes are stamped and sealed to keep the ballots hidden as the workers at the polls open them. The envelopes must also be signed and dated by the voter. Pennsylvania voters have requested 2 million mail ballots.

Two voters from western Pennsylvania’s Butler County filed a lawsuit after the local elections board rejected their provisional ballots when they learned that there were problems with the ballots that they mailed.

The election officials’ decision was upheld by a county judge.

A 2019 Pennsylvania law changed the rules for mail-in ballots, allowing them to be used more widely and resulting in a number of lawsuits.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, most counties, but not all, inform voters before Election Day that they will be denied a mail-in vote, allowing them to cast a provisional at their polling station.