WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Pennsylvania Voters Decide, a coalition of more than 50 pro-voting rights organizations, responded today to a hearing in Chester County over challenges to more than 200 mail ballot applications. After hearing arguments from the challengers and impacted voters, the county board of elections unanimously denied all of the challenges, finding that the challengers failed to meet their burden of proof and upholding the voting rights of the challenged voters.
The voters whose applications were challenged included a military spouse, a local law enforcement officer and his spouse, a college student who is currently vacationing overseas, and a decades-long resident who recently moved from Malvern to West Chester and had his mail forwarded to a friend from out-of-state while relocating.
Several of the voters whose applications were challenged appeared in person to testify against being disqualified, including Ana Harley, the spouse of an active duty member of the U.S. Navy whose permanent domicile is in Chester County.
“We are days away from the election, and I’m here, in person, because I feel obligated to speak out against unsubstantiated allegations by a ‘concerned’ citizen who does not know me,” Harley said.
“I am here on behalf of those who cannot be,” Harley added. “The military families in California, Hawaii, or even Japan or the first-time voters who are away from home and may feel helpless or confused. My story is their story.”
The argument for the challenges, presented by attorney Meaghan Wagner on behalf of election denier activist Diane Houser, was full of inaccuracies and misunderstandings of the law, the coalition said in a statement after the hearing.
“The election deniers made serious but spurious allegations against eligible voters who have every right to vote in Pennsylvania. They inflicted anxiety on these eligible voters, and they stole precious time from elections officials trying to prepare for a big day,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “They rely on a postal service database that includes many people who have every right to vote in Pennsylvania, like local residents serving in the military and attending college, making it a completely unreliable basis for challenges. Suspicion, without real evidence, cannot be used to disenfranchise people, and boards of elections should summarily reject such meritless allegations.”
Among the issues cited by the coalition, the challengers acknowledged that they had no evidence that any of the voters submitted ballots in any other state, relying on mail forwarding and some unverified voter registration records as the basis for the challenges. Mail forwarding is not a basis for establishing residency for voting, and voters can be registered in more than one place under federal law, as long as they only vote in one location. It is common for voters to have duplicate registrations as a result of moving or temporary relocations. Under the law, the voters are not required to cancel duplicate voter registrations, which are typically removed through routine maintenance of the voter rolls.
“Voters pick their leaders. Leaders don’t pick their voters,” said Amy Widestrom, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “What we saw presented today was an argument full of misunderstanding of the law and a total lack of evidence. We call on all Pennsylvanians to stand together against these apparent voter suppression tactics.”
Earlier this week, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU sent a letter to all 67 county solicitors in the commonwealth, explaining why the activist-driven mass challenges to mail ballot applications are illegal.
