A Pennsylvania county illegally failed to inform voters that their ballots were rejected and would not be counted in last April’s primary election, a judge has ruled.
The judge said the Washington County Board of Elections must alert voters whose votes are rejected, enabling them to cast provisional ballots.
“This ruling marks a significant step in safeguarding the voting rights of Washington County residents,” Sarah Martik, executive director of the Center for Coalfield Justice, said in a statement. “It should be a no-brainer that voters are notified if they make a mistake on their mail-in ballot packet and have the option to cast a provisional ballot.”
Washington County officials adopted a policy of not notifying voters whose mail-in ballots or voter packets were found to have one or more errors that their votes would not be counted. That led to 259 ballots, or 2 percent of the votes, from the April primary being rejected and the voters who cast the ballots not finding out until after the election.
Pennsylvania law clearly says voters can challenge decisions made by canvassing boards, and U.S. constitutional rights also support notifying voters if their mail-in ballots are being rejected with enough time left to cast provisional ballots, the judge said.
Nick Sherman, the chairman of Washington County’s commissioners, said he and other county officials hadn’t decided whether to appeal. However, Sherman said he believed the county’s practices are compliant with state law.
“I would question how you would read a law that is that black and white and then make a ruling like that,” Sherman said in an interview.
Sherman pointed to a state law that says counties cannot pre-canvass mail-in ballots or begin processing them until Election Day starting at 7 a.m.
Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped represent the plaintiffs, said county election workers can see right away whether a just-arrived mail-in ballot has mistakes that disqualify it.
Most counties check for such mistakes and notify voters immediately or enter the ballot’s status into the state’s voting database, Walczak said. That helps alert voters that their ballots were rejected, allowing them to cast ballots that count, according to Walczak, who said that the checking does not constitute pre-canvassing.
