RNC Lawsuit Could Disenfranchise Pennsylvania Voters Who Make Mistakes on Mail-in Ballots
The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a petition in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday arguing that voters who make mistakes on mail-in ballots shouldn’t be allowed to cure their ballots or vote using a provisional ballot on Election Day.
Currently in Pennsylvania, individual counties have created procedures to notify voters if their mail-in ballot cannot be counted and provide them the opportunity to cure that ballot or instead cast a provisional ballot at a polling place on Election Day.
The RNC, along with the Pennsylvania GOP, argued that county election boards allowing voters to cure their ballots violates state election law.
In 2022, the RNC also filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania claiming county boards of elections can’t develop and implement mail-in ballot cure procedures. In March 2023, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court dismissed the case — not on its merits, but because the court didn’t have the legal authority to address the claims of the lawsuit.
In this current lawsuit, Republicans are adopting a much more extreme view. The GOP plaintiffs argue that voters should not be able to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if their ballot is defective. Essentially they are equating that specific behavior to ballot curing.
This argument has been rejected by state and national Democrats and even by a judge.
In the case addressing whether mail-in ballots without outer envelopes, known as naked ballots, should be counted in Butler County, a Commonwealth Court judge wrote they rejected the argument that the use of provisional ballots “would amount to ballot curing.”
Also, in the lawsuit filed against Washington County for not notifying voters about mail-in ballot errors, the Democratic National Committee and the state Democratic Party filed an amicus brief saying “the premise that provisional voting is a form of ‘curing’ ballot defects…is doubly flawed.”
Now, the RNC has asked the state Supreme Court to prohibit county boards from implementing any curing procedures for mail-in ballots before the 2024 election, including the ability to cure defective mail-in ballots by casting a provisional ballot in person. They also urged the court to order Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt (R) to rescind his guidance stating that voters may cure defective mail-in ballots.
If the Republican plaintiffs are successful, Pennsylvania voters who make mistakes on their mail-in ballot, like not dating it correctly, forgetting to sign it or not putting it in the outer envelope, could lose their opportunity to vote in the upcoming election.