On July 1, 2024, seven voters, the Center for Coalfield Justice, and the Washington Branch NAACP filed suit against the Washington County Board of Elections over the board’s 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. 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 board’s decision led to the disqualification of 259 timely-received mail ballots in the April 2024 primary election.
The voters, CCJ, and the NAACP branch are represented by the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Public Interest Law Center, and the law firm Dechert LLP. The suit argues that the board violated the voters’ due process rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution. The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the county not to conceal information about voters’ errors on their mail-in ballot return packets and in upcoming elections to enter the proper data into the SURE system, a statewide database administered by the Pennsylvania Department of State, that will allow voters to be automatically notified about disqualifying mistakes related to their mail-in ballot prior to Election Day.
On August 24, 2024, the Washington County Court of Common Pleas ruled that the Pennsylvania Constitution requires the Washington County board of elections to inform mail-in voters of any disqualifying errors on their mail-ballot packets when those errors are detected by the board. The case is now on appeal before the Commonwealth Court.
On September 24, 2024, the Commonwealth Court affirmed the county court's decision, saying, "the current Policy emasculates the Election Code’s guarantees by depriving voters - like Electors herein - the opportunity to contest their disqualification or to avail themselves of the statutory failsafe of casting a provisional ballot."
The case is now on appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
