ACLU sues Pennsylvania county over rejected mail-in ballots
The American Civil Liberties Union says it has filed a lawsuit against Washington County in Pennsylvania, alleging that 259 eligible voters have been "disenfranchised" after not being informed of errors that disqualified their presidential primary mail-in ballots.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of seven voters, the Washington Branch NAACP and the Center for Coalfield Justice – an environmental group – comes following the Washington County Board of Elections’ "decision before the 2024 primary election to conceal from voters errors they had made on their mail ballot return envelopes that meant their votes would not be counted," according to the ACLU.
"Because the voters were not informed of the errors, they had no opportunity to correct them by either requesting a new mail ballot or by voting a provisional ballot at their polling place," the ACLU said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Washington County did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday from Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington County’s Court of Common Pleas, says the case is "about fundamentally unfair and egregious conduct by the Washington County Board of Elections that rises to the level of a procedural due process violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution."
"In April 2024, the Washington County Board of Elections voted 2-1 to adopt a mail-in voting policy that deliberately concealed information about which voters had made disqualifying errors on their mail-in ballot envelopes," it says. "The Board’s decision was a complete reversal of its prior policy of notifying voters of ballot envelope mistakes – such as missing signatures or incomplete dates – and providing them with an opportunity to correct those errors."
"Instead, in the weeks leading up to the April 2024 election, the Board determined which mail-in ballots would not be counted, and then implemented a systematic process to keep that information from voters and the public, in many cases affirmatively misleading voters into thinking that their mail-in ballots would be counted," the lawsuit continues.
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It alleges that the Board "deliberately entered information into Pennsylvania’s Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors ("SURE") system that made it appear as if the Board had accepted the defective mail ballots, when in fact the Board had already set them aside and was planning to not count them" and then "instructed its election office staff not to provide any information to voters who inquired about the status of their mail-in ballot, including whether they had made errors that would prevent their vote from being counted."
The ACLU says the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit are seeking a court order for the county to stop "conceal[ing] information about voters’ errors on their mail-in ballot return packets," and enter the appropriate data in future elections into the state's system "that will allow voters to be automatically notified about disqualifying mistakes related to their mail-in ballot prior to Election Day."