Court Cases

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas in York, PA over the York County Board of Elections’ refusal to allow nonpartisan observers to witness the official canvass of the vote during the 2023 election cycle. The lawsuit alleges that York County’s refusal to admit public observers during its canvass procedure is a violation of the Pennsylvania Election Code, which mandates public access to the canvassing of election results. In November of 2023, a longtime York resident arrived at the county’s official canvass of election returns to observe the proceedings. An official from the county’s election office refused to allow the resident to enter the room where the official canvass meeting was taking place, incorrectly stating that the resident needed a “watcher’s certificate.” Watcher certificates are provided under Pennsylvania election law so that political parties and representatives can observe vote count canvasses. Residents unaffiliated with a party or a candidate do not need a watcher’s certificate to observe the computation of results from each district that occurs during an official canvass. ACLU-PA attorneys sent a letter to York County election officials raising concerns about their refusal to allow the volunteer to witness the canvass. The county responded that its actions were within the bounds of the law and that in refusing entry to the election canvass, it was hoping to prevent a "free for all" that "could be catastrophic." The lawsuit asks the court to mandate that York County follow the law by conducting a public canvass of election returns during the 2024 primary and general elections and to allow the plaintiff and other members of the public to observe the canvass.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Public Interest Law Center filed a lawsuit in Delaware County when the Board of Elections decided not to count the provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots had been previously rejected. Our clients-- three longtime voters in Delaware County -- had submitted mail-in ballots that were deemed defective by county election officials. On Election Day, the voters cast a provisional ballot at their polling place, rather than going to the county seat to "cure" the mail-in ballots. Those provisional ballots were also rejected by the Board of Elections, because the Board believed that it was bound by an unpublished and nonprecedential Commonwealth Court decision. On September 21, 2023, Judge John J. Whelan ruled that the Delaware County Board of Elections had to count the Petitioners' provisional ballots. The courts adopted a commonsense interpretation of the Election Code to conclude that a voter whose attempt to vote by mail was canceled due to an error on the outer return envelope has not “cast” any other ballot in the same election and their provisional ballot must be counted.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have filed a federal lawsuit to ensure that Pennsylvania mail-in ballots that are missing a handwritten date on the return envelope or dated incorrectly are counted.

A coalition of voting rights advocates filed a motion to intervene in Ball v. Chapman, the latest legal effort in the commonwealth to invalidate mail-in ballots that are missing a handwritten date on the return envelope.

The Lancaster County commissioners failed to properly notify the public at least 24 hours in advance that they would be considering the elimination of their one ballot dropbox at their April meeting, as required by the state’s Sunshine Act.

The consolidated lawsuits McLinko v. Commonwealth and Bonner v. Commonwealth are state constitutional challenges to Act 77 of 2019. That law implemented numerous election law reforms, including no-excuse absentee voting, or what is sometimes called vote-by-mail.

On January 31, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Lehigh County to require the county to count 257 mail-in ballots from the 2021 general election that were disqualified only because they were missing the handwritten date on the outer envelope in which the ballot is placed for mailing or submission. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five county residents, all of whom are qualified to vote and whose ballots arrived to the elections bureau in time to be tabulated. All 257 voters impacted by the disqualification of their ballots for not including the date are otherwise eligible to vote and properly followed the procedures for voting by mail. In the complaint, the ACLU states that disqualifying the undated ballots runs afoul of both the federal Civil Rights Act and the Constitution. The Civil Rights Act prohibits disqualifying a person’s vote if the reason for disqualification is “not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote(.)” The lawsuit also states that the county’s failure to notify the voters of the errors violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, the plaintiffs state that the date requirement is “superfluous” and an undue burden that restricts their right to vote, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. On March 16, the federal district court ruled against the voters. On May 20, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of the voters, ordering the 257 ballots to be counted, and accompanied their judgment with a precedential opinion released a week later. On May 31, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily halted, or stayed, the circuit court's ruling while the justices considered the case. On June 9, 2022, the Supreme Court denied the stay in a 6-3 ruling, leaving the appeals court ruling in place and clearing the way for the ballots to be counted. On October 11, 2022, months after the Lehigh County election had been certified, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower courts' rulings, meaning that the appeals court ruling is no longer precedent in the federal Third Circuit.

On January 5, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed suit against Fulton County for its failure to comply with a September 2021 order by the Office of Open Records to produce all records related to Fulton County’s review of its election results and voting machines.

On October 4, 2021, the ACLU of PA filed a motion to intervene on behalf of three advocacy organizations and eight individual voters in a lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania attorney general challenging subpoenas issued by a state Senate committee for personally identifying information of voters.