A federal judge ruled Tuesday against Pennsylvania GOP congressmen who filed a lawsuit against the secretary of the commonwealth over allegedly lax requirements for military and overseas voters.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the suitruling that the congressmen “were too late to file suit, lacked standing, failed to join indispensable parties, and failed to articulate a viable cause of action.”

“An ordinance at this late hour would overturn the Commonwealth’s carefully established election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters, not to mention the state and county administrators who would be expected to implement these new procedures in addition to their current duties,” Conner said.

Pennsylvania GOP Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn “GT” Thompson, Lloyd Smucker and Mike Kelly filed a lawsuit in federal court last month against Pennsylvania Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt (R) and Assistant Secretary of Elections Jonathan Marks for a directive regarding eligibility verification of military and overseas voters.

These voters are allowed to vote from outside the US thanks to the federal Overseas and Uniform Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). To request a UOCAVA ballot, a voter must provide a social security number and either a driver’s license or state-issued identification number, which are used to verify the voter’s identity.

However, the Pennsylvania Department of State directive states “that Pennsylvania and federal law are clear that voter registrations cannot be rejected based solely on a mismatch between the applicant’s identification numbers on their application and the numbers in the comparison database “.

The lawmakers’ lawsuit alleged that the directive violates both UOCAVA and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).