Appeals court rules Washington County must notify mail-in voters of ballot errors

The Washington County Board of Elections must notify voters of mail-in ballot errors so they can vote provisionally, a Pennsylvania appellate court panel ruled Tuesday.

The decision upheld a lower court ruling that a policy barring election workers from notifying voters about mail-in ballot errors was unconstitutional.

“We do not believe our Constitution countenances such a deprivation without notice and an opportunity to be heard,” according to Commonwealth Court Judge Michael Wojcik.

Plaintiffs applauded the decision.

“Voters in Washington County can be assured that, if they make a mistake with their mail ballot, they’ll be notified and have a chance to rescue their vote,” Claudia De Palma, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, said in a statement. “That’s a win for voters.”

Seven Washington County voters — along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Public Interest Law Center, Center for Coalfield Justice and the Washington branch of the NAACP — in July sued the county’s elections board. They alleged the board’s policy kept voters in the dark about disqualifying errors on their ballots and didn’t give them a chance to cast provisional votes.

“Everyone who wants to participate in an election should have that opportunity,” said David Gatling Sr., president of the Washington branch of the NAACP. “And election officials should do their best to assist their constituents to make sure their votes count.”

The lawsuit alleged that 259 Washington County voters were denied their right to vote in the 2024 primary because of mistakes on their mail-in ballots.

Since they were not told about the errors, they didn’t vote provisionally on Election Day.

None of the voters involved in the lawsuit had been aware their votes were disqualified until after the election. At least two of them didn’t find out until months after the primary, Wojcik wrote.

Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brandon P. Neuman sided with the voters and their advocates last month. The county elections board appealed, joined by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.

The three-member Commonwealth Court panel voted 2-1, with Wojcik joined by President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer. Judge Lori Dumas dissented.

Melanie Ostrander, the county’s director of elections, was not immediately available to comment on the decision Tuesday.

In the past, voters were alerted to errors on their mail-in ballots and given the chance to fix them.

However, following an April 11 meeting, the county elections board voted to change how defective ballots were entered into Pennsylvania’s Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors system.

Instead of recording an error in the database — triggering an email notification to the voter to either request a new ballot or cast a provisional vote on election day — Washington County’s workers were told to enter the defective ballots as “received,” instead of canceled or pending.