Due to a ruling by a judge in the US state of Pennsylvania last Friday, voters in Butler County can no longer have defective mail-in ballots that are missing the inner secrecy envelope – also known as “naked ballots” – repaired.
The ruling, which is expected to be appealed, upholds an earlier decision by the Butler County Board of Elections that did not allow two voters to correct their “naked” mail-in ballots in the state’s 2024 primary election.
“It is the voter’s responsibility to ensure that he or she has completed the necessary steps to have his or her mail-in ballot included in the count,” the order issued last week said. The judge added that it is up to the Pennsylvania Legislature, not the court, to establish a new set of correction procedures to correct defective mail-in ballots.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states that requires mail-in voters to place their ballots in a secret inner envelope and then in an outer envelope. The issue of uncovered ballots was particularly contentious in the Keystone State before the 2020 election, sparking a legal battle that ultimately led to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that uncovered ballots were “invalid.”
Friday’s ruling for Butler County stems from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Pennsylvania in April on behalf of two voters who cast provisional ballots on Election Day to correct their invalid ballots, and the county refused to count them.
The voters claimed that the panel’s rejection of their provisional ballots was a violation of state election law and a misinterpretation of Pennsylvania Supreme Court precedent. According to the lawsuit, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated unfunded ballots in its 2020 decision but did not hold that voters were barred from correcting unfunded ballots.
The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania GOP sought to join the lawsuit to prevent the election board from counting voters’ provisional ballots. “There is no right under Pennsylvania law to correct mail-in ballots that lack a secrecy envelope,” the Republicans argued in a court filing.
Meanwhile, voters claimed that because the county allows voters to correct mail-in ballots with other errors, such as missing dates or signatures, it should also allow voters to tamper with spurious ballots to prevent “unnecessary and arbitrary” disenfranchisement. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party intervened in the litigation to support the voters’ arguments.
But in his opinion on Friday, the judge concluded that the panel had not violated state law or the state constitution by refusing to count the plaintiffs’ ballots.
Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center, called the decision “disappointing” and noted in a statement that the “provisional ballot process has been in place for scenarios like this for more than two decades and the county has an obligation to use it.”
McKenzie, who along with other attorneys represents Butler County voters, also said she and her clients are “considering the possibility of an appellate review.”
Read the order here.
Learn more about the case here.
