Tag: Mail-In Ballot

Bucks County, Pennsylvania Votes to Count Illegal Ballots Because ‘People Violate Laws Any Time They Want’

Tom Pappert

The two Democratic members of the Bucks County Commission voted to count ballots the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined are illegal in a previous ruling, with the county specifically giving election workers orders to count mail-in votes returned with an incomplete, incorrect, or missing date.

Despite the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on November 1 that ballots mailed without correct dates would not be counted, with voters instead told to cast a provisional ballot that would be counted instead, the two Democratic members of the Bucks County Commission voted to accept ballots with missing or incorrect dates.

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Philadelphia Approves New Ballot Processing Machines for Faster Election Results

Tom Pappert

The City of Philadelphia confirmed on Wednesday that it will use new machines to process mail-in ballots on Election Day, according to a new report. The city will now use the same equipment used in Pittsburgh.

Public records reported Wednesday by Spotlight PA show the City of Philadelphia purchased four Omation Model 306 Envelopener Letter Opener devices, which an industry website claims is capable of opening 40,000 envelopes per hour.

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Pennsylvania Lawmaker Offers Legislation to Count Provisional Ballots in Cases of Defective Mail-In Votes

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) is drafting a bill to ensure voters have their in-person votes counted in cases when their defective mail-in ballots were tossed. 

Boscola sponsored Act 77, the 2019 law that legalized no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, and her emerging bill seeks to clarify a part of that statute. A provision in that law led the Delaware County Board of Elections to vote unanimously on May 23 to throw out six of its eligible voters’ ballots cast in the May 16 primary. Three of those voters are now suing the board in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas to have their votes tallied and to guarantee those in similar situations have their ballots counted in the future. 

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Pennsylvania Senate Bill Would Reprioritize In-Person Votes

Bradley Vasoli

Two Pennsylvania state senators told colleagues this week they are drafting a measure to count in-person ballots rather than absentee ballots in instances when someone uses both methods to vote. 

Before Act 77, a 2019 law letting Pennsylvanians vote by mail without an excuse like illness or travel, those who submitted absentee ballots but became able to vote in person could do so while having their absentee ballots voided. The new law however directs election boards to let an absentee voter cast their vote in person using a provisional ballot; in cases when the mail-in ballot was received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, the earlier mail-in ballot, not the in-person one, is recorded.

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Pennsylvania House Democrats Propose Letting ‘All Incarcerated Individuals’ Vote

Bradley Vasoli

Several Democratic lawmakers this week proposed legislation allowing all imprisoned Pennsylvania citizens to vote by absentee ballot. 

State Representatives Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia), Christopher Rabb (D-Philadelphia), Donna Bullock (D-Philadelphia), Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia) and Aerion Abney (D-Pittsburgh) announced they will cosponsor the bills. 

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New PAC Encourages Pennsylvania Republicans to Adapt to Mail-In Voting

Bradley Vasoli

Two and a half years after Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and a Republican-controlled legislature enacted no-excuse absentee voting, many right-leaning Pennsylvanians still resist adjusting to the new system. 

Arnaud Armstrong can sympathize. The Allentown native and 2018 University of Pittsburgh graduate has worked in various communication and grassroots roles for GOP campaigns and always found in-person voting ideal from a civic standpoint. But the lead organizer of Win Again PAC, a committee that formally launched last weekend at the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference near Harrisburg, says it behooves his party compatriots to mount more spirited efforts to win absentee votes.  

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Conway Urges Pennsylvania Republicans to Play by ‘New Rules’ on Absentee Voting

Bradley Vasoli

Camp Hill, PA — Kellyanne Conway, a nationally renowned pollster and senior counselor in the Trump White House, called upon movement conservatives in Pennsylvania on Friday to adjust to mass absentee voting if they want to win tough elections.

“My theme tonight is about winning, not whining,” she told attendees of the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference (PLC) at the Penn Harris Hotel just across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg. 

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Pennsylvania’s Improved Voter Registry ‘Behind Schedule’

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s top election officials this week informed lawmakers that the process of replacing the state’s voter-records system is “behind schedule” but assured them his agency is prioritizing its completion. 

Responding to questions from members of the state House Appropriations Committee in preparation for drafting the Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget, Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Al Schmidt said 23 counties are testing the initial version of the new SUREVote system.

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Pennsylvania Court Dismisses GOP Lawsuit Against Ballot ‘Curing’ Policies

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court on Thursday dismissed a Republican Party lawsuit seeking to prevent counties from “curing” mail-in ballots that contain mistakes. 

The GOP national and state committees who sued insisted state law does not outline procedures for local election boards to inform absentee voters they made mistakes filling out their vote envelopes or to let those voters fix their errors. In recent elections, various counties did so anyway, prompting Republicans to object that the rules aren’t being followed in certain jurisdictions across the commonwealth.

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Commentary: After Taking Two Days to Count 20 Percent of Primary Election Votes, Arizona Should Look to Florida’s Voting Reforms

RealClearWire

Until this month, Pennsylvania owned the dubious distinction among states of most embarrassing election management. But given its own lethargy in counting votes in its primary, Arizona has now edged out the Keystone State. While Pennsylvania had problems counting the last portion of votes the evening after its primary, it took Arizona two days to count the last 20% of the vote.

As RealClearPolitics has noted before, Pennsylvania could solve its voting-administration issues by adopting Florida’s voting reforms – but Pennsylvania is hamstrung by a divided government. Arizona does not face this problem, however. For at least the next four months, Arizona will have a Republican state legislature and governor. Arizona’s governor and state legislature should enact Florida-like voting reforms before the November elections to avoid further embarrassment.

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Commentary: Taking Advantage of COVID to Change the Way Americans Vote

Admin

Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, famously said in 2008 that you should never let “a serious crisis go to waste” because it is “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Liberals in 2020 took Emanuel’s political tenet to heart and used the COVID-19 pandemic to try to implement through litigation and executive actions by state government officials the reckless changes in voting and election procedures that they had been wanting for years.

That effort involved voiding basic security protocols on election procedures, including absentee ballots, and pushing for the equivalent of all-mail elections, which would give their activists a free hand in pressuring, coercing, and influencing voters in their homes in ways they are unable to do in polling places. To force these changes, they ended up filing more election-related lawsuits than had ever been filed in an election year in U.S. history. The prior record was almost 200 lawsuits before and after the 2000 election when George W. Bush beat Al Gore; by late October 2020, more than 400 election-related lawsuits had been filed across the nation, the overwhelming majority by the Left.

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Five and a Half Months After 2020 Election Fulton County Fails to Produce Complete Chain of Custody Documents for Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes

Tiffany Morgan

Nearly half a year after the 2020 Election, and four months after the original inquiry, Fulton County has failed to fulfill the Open Records Request with The Georgia Star News. Although the county did provide some chain of custody documents, initial analysis by The Star News indicates that the Fulton County ballot transfer form records sent may be incomplete.

On January 22, Fulton County Officials responded to the Open Records request made by The Star News with two PDF files. As previously reported, of those two files – one with a label that ended with BX-1, and another with a label that ended with BX-3 – showed ballot transfer form records for 36,635 absentee votes by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes.

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New Jersey Mail Carrier Arrested for Throwing Election Ballots Away

Admin

A New Jersey postal worker was arrested Wednesday for discarding multiple pieces of mail, including election ballots, CBS reported.

Over 1,800 pieces of mail were retrieved from dumpsters, 99 of which were ballots, according to CBS. Federal prosecutors said 26-year-old Nicholas Beauchene was scheduled to deliver mail in parts of Orange and West Orange, New Jersey, according to CBS.

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Biden’s Texas Political Director Implicated in Massive Mail-In Ballot Harvesting Scheme in Harris County

Admin

A Biden Campaign operative in Texas is attempting to rig the 2020 election with the help of others in a massive ballot harvesting scheme, according to two private investigators who testified under oath that they have “video evidence, documentation and witnesses” to prove it. With the help of mass mail-in ballots, the illegal ballot harvesting operation could harvest 700,000 ballots, one Harris County Democrat operative allegedly bragged.

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Wisconsin to Mail Absentee Ballot Applications to 2.7 Million Voters

Admin

The Hill reports, the Wisconsin Elections Commission agreed to mail out 2.7 million absentee ballot applications to most voters in the state this fall ahead of November’s presidential election.

The vote came just a week after the six-person panel split 3-3 along partisan lines on whether to mail the forms to nearly all registered voters, even if they hadn’t requested one. The bipartisan commission on Wednesday unanimously passed the plan.

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