At least 16 Pa. counties don’t notify or let voters fix errors on mail-in ballots
The ACLU, which collected the county data, says 'thousands' of voters have been disenfranchised as a result of the policy
At least 16 counties in Pennsylvania do not notify voters or give them a chance to fix disqualifying mistakes on mail-in ballots so their votes count, according to an analysis by the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
The ACLU released its findings on Thursday as the state Supreme Court said it will consider whether to require all counties to allow voters to cast provisional ballots if they make errors on their mail-in ballots.
The case before the Supreme Court arose from Butler County where officials rejected the provisional ballots of two voters who used the option after learning they forgot to use secrecy sleeves.
A similar case from Washington County may also go before the high court.
“Eligible voters have the right to cast a ballot, in person or by mail, and have their ballot counted and certified,” said ACLU-PA Executive Director Mike Lee in a press release.
“These policies have real impact on real voters, and we know that thousands have been disenfranchised because of them,” he said.
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The 16 counties that don’t let voters know or allow curing are Blair, Cameron, Clarion, Columbia, Forest, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Lebanon, McKean, Mercer, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Westmoreland and York.
The ACLU said at least 36 counties give voters the opportunity to cure mail ballots. Lehigh and Northampton counties are among them.
An additional 10 counties do not have in-office curing hours but do enter accurate ballot statuses into the Pennsylvania Department of State’s SURE system – a centralized database of county voter rolls – through a barcode tied to each voter.
Those voters who have previously supplied an email are notified if their mail-in ballots were rejected and advised to seek a provisional ballot at the polls on election day.
ACLU said it was unable to learn the policies of five counties.
The reason for the differing policies is that Pennsylvania’s Act 77, the 2019 law that first allowed no-excuse, mail-in ballots, doesn’t address ballot curing.
The silence of the law led to a deadlocked state Supreme Court ruling in October 2022 that, in effect, left it up to counties to decide whether to let voters fix their ballots. For that reason, the state does not track how counties handle curing, the Pennsylvania State Department told Armchair Lehigh Valley.
In arguing in lawsuits against allowing curing, Republicans have said it shouldn’t be permitted because the law is silent on the matter.
“By inspecting the ballots and notifying voters about discovered defects, [Election] Boards are vastly exceeding their Authority,” Republican plaintiffs wrote in one brief.
For the April 23 primary election, the state said, 2.2% of the voters had their mail-in ballots rejected.
In the absence of state data, the ACLU Pennsylvania researched the state’s 67 counties on their policies and created an interactive map, which will be updated as policies change or more information is shared.
“While the ACLU tackles the legal battles to make voting as easy as possible, voters need to know what they can expect from their county if they vote by mail,” Lee said.
What the policies mean to voters
Sarah Niebler is an associate professor in the political science department at Dickinson College who studies mail-in voting. She reviewed the ACLU’s findings at the request of Armchair Lehigh Valley.
Niebler said 74% percent of registered Pennsylvania voters live in a county that has a notice-and-cure policy with the bulk of the requests for mail ballots for both party members coming from those places.
She said 9% of registered Democrats live in counties with no notice and/or cure policies while 17% of registered Republicans do.
Prior research by Niebler found that Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to make errors on ballots that can lead to disqualification.
“All of this taken together suggests to me that Republican voters are the ones likely to be disadvantaged by the Commonwealth not having uniform notice and cure policies across all 67 counties in the state,” she said in an email.
Niebler went on to say, “If Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to make mistakes on their mail-in ballots, a higher percentage of registered Democratic voters will have the opportunity to cure those ballots in advance of Election Day.”
The latest lawsuits
The ACLU has been among voting advocacy groups involved in a strand of lawsuits over mail-in ballots.
On Sept. 20, the state’s high court said it would hear the Butler County case. In the spring primary, Butler allowed some voters to add missing signatures or dates on their mail-in ballot materials but rejected the provisional ballots of at least two voters who cast them despite learning they forgot to put their ballots in the secrecy sleeves.
In Washington County, a lawsuit has been filed over the decision by the county against alerting voters of mistakes. Previously, Washington let voters know.
The decision led to the disqualification of 259 timely-received mail-in ballots in the April 2024 primary election, the ACLU said.
In a separate case, the state Supreme Court issued a brief order on Sept. 13, saying ballots with missing or incorrect dates should not be counted on Nov. 5.
While county boards of election can tell if a ballot arrives on time, Act 77 clearly states that mail-ballots must correctly dated such like a contract. Instead, voters have written their birth dates, the date of the election or dates before ballots could have been filled out.
The court cited technical reasons for rejecting the lawsuit from voting advocacy groups, saying it was filed against only two counties (Philadelphia and Allegheny) but not the state’s 65 other counties.
On Sept. 25, the organizations asked the state Supreme Court to review the case again – this time including all 67 counties as defendants - and consider the merits of their case. The case is pending.
The ACLU is also seeking a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on whether mail-in ballots need to be dated, according to Votebeat.