The Supreme Court cleared the way for the case to proceed Tuesday, when it denied Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes permission to appeal an April 2007 ruling by Commonwealth Court that said voters may contest the legality of the widely used — and increasingly controversial — electronic voting systems.

“We will prepare for trial and hold a trial, and we look forward to that,” Michael Churchill, an attorney representing the 26 voters who filed the original challenge, said Wednesday after learning of the court’s decision.

Filed in August 2006, the lawsuit asked Commonwealth Court to decertify the direct recording electronic voting machines — or DREs — then in use in 58 of the state’s 67 counties, on the basis the devices violate a provision in the state election code requiring a permanent physical record of each vote cast.

The challenge, if successful, would have broad repercussions. Although Lackawanna, Wayne and a handful of other counties have since switched to optical-scan voting systems, touch-screen machines and similar DREs are still used in 50 counties across the state, including Luzerne, Monroe, Pike and Wyoming.

The Supreme Court’s decision means the case will return to Commonwealth Court, where it will be assigned to a judge and proceed in the typical manner with discovery and the filing of motions.