This article was originally published By Let him votea nonprofit organization focused on local election administration and voting access.
By Carter WalkerVote
All of the more than 4,000 mail-in ballot protests filed in Pennsylvania over the past two weeks have been withdrawn or rejected. Resolving the objections means that voters’ ballots will be counted, barring any other disqualifications such as signature or date problems.
“It is encouraging that each of these challenges has been rejected or withdrawn,” he said Al SchmidtCommonwealth Secretary.
In many cases, challenges were reported by right-wing activists associated with the group led by PA Fair Elections Heather Honeya Pennsylvania researcher whose data analysis methods have led to misleading or erroneous conclusions in the past.
Two state senators, Chris Dush AND Jarrett Colemanfiled complaints in four counties, all of which were withdrawn. Neither responded to a request for comment on Friday.
In all, questions were raised about the eligibility of thousands of absentee ballots filed in 15 Pennsylvania counties by Nov. 1, the deadline for filing such objections.
“I don’t know if this challenge is disingenuous or just misplaced.” Patrick the Judgeone of the 52 voters challenged in Lawrence County said at Friday’s hearing. He said challengers may be right that state voter rolls could be better managed, but trying to invalidate the votes of U.S. citizens who followed current rules is not the way to express those concerns.
The judge’s vote was not rejected. Nevertheless, he said at the hearing that the challenge did not seem very democratic to him. “I feel very disenfranchised right now, for the reason I’m not sure,” the judge said.
Pennsylvania law requires that a person eligible to vote must be a resident of the state. It also established a procedure by which, for a fee of $10, anyone can challenge an individual’s application for an absentee ballot on the grounds that the applicant is not eligible to vote.
Most of the challenges focused on overseas voters, who can cast ballots under a 1986 federal law called Absentee Voting Act for Uniformed Citizens and Foreign Citizensor UOCAVA. The law states that U.S. citizens and military personnel living overseas can still vote by mail in the state where they last resided, although if they have no immediate plans to return, they can only participate in elections for federal offices, such as president, and not state and local races.
Many challengers argued that they were not concerned with challenging voters’ eligibility to vote, but rather with the practice of failing to register voters before issuing them ballots. However, if these challenges were successful, they would invalidate voters’ ballots. District officials argued that the challengers were misinterpreting the requirements of UOCAVA and state law and the interplay of the two laws.
Other challenges involved comparing voter addresses in the state’s absentee ballot application file with addresses associated with voter names in the U.S. Postal Service database. Experts and officials have criticized this comparison method because of its tendency to produce false matches or misunderstand why a person requested a change of mailing address.
Districts held challenge hearings last week, including hearings from district officials and voter testimony. It ended with officials rejecting the challenges or the challengers withdrawing them. In many cases, officials said evidence was missing. Several challengers withdrew their challenges after Election Day.
The hearings also revealed who the challengers were. In at least seven counties, the challenger had a history of participating in AP Fair Elections meetings or identified as working with the group.
The group’s unsigned statement denied that the challenges were in any way coordinated or approved by it. Honey, the group’s leader, separately rejected any suggestion that the group was involved.
In Lycoming County, the lawsuit was filed by: Karen DiSalvo Institute for Election Research, another group run by Honey. DiSalvo previously denied that her complaints were filed in connection with the group.
He was one of the contenders Patricia Bleasdalewho attended PA Fair Elections meetings and filed 143 complaints in Delaware County using change of address forms.
During Thursday’s hearing, Bleasdale admitted that she did not conduct the analysis herself and obtained the information from an outside group, which she did not name.
Ashley Lunkenheimerchairman of the county board of elections, expressed frustration with Bleasdale’s actions.
“Do you understand what you did here?” – said Lunkenheimer. “We have 143 voters who we have notified that their absentee ballots may not be included in a really important election… You did this without actually checking that each of them had submitted the national change of address application form.”
Voters targeted by Bleasdale’s challenges also testified. Nicholas Maston invited Bleasdale to visit his home 1.6 miles from the hearing site to verify his residence. The lawsuit against him cited a years-old change of address to his Chicago home, but did not acknowledge a more recent change of address to his current home in Delaware County in August.
The claim that his vote in Pennsylvania should be ineligible “is a very serious allegation to me, and that’s why I’m here today,” he said. “In addition to the assumptions made in creating this database that lead to these challenges being wrong, the data itself is also flawed.”
Carter Walker is a Votebeat reporter with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
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