Pennsylvania Voters File Lawsuit Alleging Prohibitive Mail-In Ballot Signature Issues

The League of Women Voters, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and two voters have filed a lawsuit against state officials, saying the state needs a reliable way to verify voters’ signatures on mail-in and absentee ballots.

Allegedly, problems with the current system have prevented some ballots from being counted, according to NBC Philadelphia.

In the Pennsylvania class action lawsuit, voters Amy Campbell and William Gilligan share the difficulties that they have had voting by mail in the elections, and the fears they have that these problems will prevent their votes from counting in the November 2020 election, Patch reported.

The two Pennsylvania voters have pointed the finger at Pennsylvania officials for failing to implement sufficient processes around verifying voter signatures, saying these problems have impeded voters’ constitutional right to participate in elections.

They say that though a 2019 law change allowed more voters to vote by mail, there are issues with the process that make it ineffective.

They note that processes vary across the state, and these lags can prevent voters from having enough time to make changes to their ballots if a problem is discovered, particularly with signature verification.

Campbell is a 26-year-old resident of Pennsylvania, registered to vote in Philadelphia County.

She says that while she normally votes in person, she decided to vote by mail in the June 2020 primary election because of the risks associated with the coronavirus pandemic. She says she submitted her online application for a mail-in ballot in April 2020 and received it around May 14, 2020.

Campbell goes on to explain that she mailed the ballot to the County Board of Elections around May 19, 2020. She says that to verify her vote was counted, she checked the status of her ballot on the website for the Department of State, tracking its progress repeatedly.

However, the ballot was marked “pending” even after June 2, 2020 — Election Day, she says. It allegedly was marked pending through June 9, 2020, the extended deadline for mail-in ballots.

The Pennsylvania voters’ class action lawsuit states the Philadelphia County Board of Elections did not email her until June 11, 2020, to inform her that her ballot had been received, but said it had been rejected because the board “could not obtain her required signature.”

Allegedly, the email did not provide Campbell with information about if or how she could fix the problems with her ballot so her vote would be counted. By the time she was notified of the problem, her vote “simply did not count.”

Now she worries similar problems will prevent her mail-in ballots from being counted in the future.

She stresses the value that mail-in voting has not only for her but other voters, noting mail-in ballots are an essential way in which voters can exercise their constitutional right to vote while protecting their health in the face of the pandemic. 

Similarly, plaintiff Gilligan says he had issues with signature verification on his mail-in ballot. Gilligan says he is an 83-year-old Pennsylvania resident living in Bucks County.

He says two major strokes have left him physically weak and that he relies on mail-in voting to allow him to participate in the electoral process, particularly during the pandemic.

Though he can still sign his name for the ballot, he says he is not sure he can reliably sign his name consistently on each document he encounters. 

He worries problems with the mail-in voting signature verification process will discount his ballots, both now and in the future.

He says he has already encountered difficulties with the voting process, claiming he was not registered in the voter registration database because of a backlog in processing voter registration forms. Because of this problem, he has not been able to participate in all of the elections he has wished to participate in.

However, he says he wishes to participate in the upcoming 2020 election.

Has your state changed its voting policies to adapt to COVID-19? Share your experience in the comments below.

The League of Women Voters, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and the two voters are represented by Mark P. Gaber, Danielle M. Lang, Ravi Doshi, Jonathan M. Diaz and Caleb Jackson of the Campaign Legal Center; and by John P. Lavelle Jr., Rachel Jaffe Mauceri, Susan Baker Manning of Morgan, Corey R. Houmand and Chris Miller of Lewis & Bockius LLC. 

The Pennsylvania Voters Mail-In Ballot Signature Verification Lawsuit is League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, et al. v. Kathy Boockvar in her Official Capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-03850, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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