The Pennsylvania Department of State on Tuesday warned voters the supplied envelope to return their mail-in ballots may arrive sealed from the humidity affecting much of the commonwealth.
In a statement posted to social media, the department confirmed reports that citizens have received mail-in ballots with sealed return envelopes.
Read the full story
Alabama began sending out the first mail-in ballots to voters on Wednesday, over 50 days out from the November election, according to CNN.
Alabama residents who requested mail-in ballots will be the first to lock in their vote for the upcoming local, state and presidential races, with Wisconsin rolling out their mail-in ballots the following week on September 19, CNN reported. North Carolina was supposed to have kickstarted mail-in voting, but the state was held up by a court order to reprint their ballots after former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the race and appealed to have his name be taken off.
Read the full story
Absentee voting for the presidential election will begin this week, two months before Election Day, as early in-person voting starts nationwide later this month amid lawsuits over election administration and election integrity concerns.
The presidential election begins this week as absentee ballots are mailed to voters in one state, with others to follow in the coming weeks. However, election integrity concerns from the last presidential election remain as various courts determine how mail-in ballots and voter rolls are to be handled with only two months before the next president will be elected.
Read the full story
A judge on Friday tossed the lawsuit filed by two Pennsylvania voters against the Butler County Board of Elections, granting a victory to Republicans who intervened in the case to argue allowing the request would block “a crucial function in protecting election integrity” this November.
Petitioners requested mail-in voters be allowed to “cure” ballots that were submitted without a security envelope after their ballots were tossed during the 2024 primary elections.
Read the full story
The 2020 presidential election witnessed a nationwide surge in the prevalence of early voting and vote-by-mail practices, which featured heavily in former President Donald Trump’s claims that mass election fraud influenced the outcome. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of voters in the 2020 race voted by absentee or mail-in ballot, and 27% reported having voted early.
Republicans were subsequently reluctant to embrace such practices, though a lackluster midterm performance and the about-face of the presumptive GOP nominee on the matter appears to have the Republicans rethinking their approach.
Read the full story
Amid delivery delays by the United States Postal Service and mail-in ballot fraud, Democrats and the media are finally acknowledging there are some issues with mail-in voting ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
As mail-in voting has increased since the 2020 presidential election during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Democrats have advocated for it as an easier method of voting. However, as USPS has experienced delivery issues and ballot harvesting has led to at least one “redo” election, some Democrats and media are noting the issues with the voting method.
Read the full story
Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin reportedly encouraged voters on Wednesday to consider delivering their 2024 mail-in ballots directly to a post office as the United States Postal Service (USPS) continues to suffer unexplained delays and disappearances of mail.
McEachin made the remarks to 6 News Richmond when discussing a new investigation into the USPS issues in Richmond. She was asked about the mail-in ballots after suggesting the problems with mail delivery could be placed highly within the postal service.
Read the full story
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was aware of the issues with mail-in voting during the 2020 election cycle but censored social media narratives about the risks as alleged disinformation, according to agency documents.
CISA documents were released on Monday by America First Legal, showing the agency’s concerns about mail-in voting while it was also monitoring online opinions about such concerns.
Read the full story
Gina Swoboda, executive director of Phoenix-based Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), recently discussed election problems and what can be done about them on the Jenny Beth Show. The first part of her interview in mid-August with the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots went over how VRF’s websites can be used to look through voter registrations and spot problems with the voter rolls. The second part dug into the election anomalies in the 2022 midterm election, what led to them, and how they could have been easily avoided by officials who blew off fixes.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Senate State Government Committee on Monday recommended confirming secretary of the commonwealth nominee Al Schmidt.
The panel voted 10-1 to back the Republican acting secretary and former Philadelphia city commissioner. In a subsequent, off-the-floor meeting, the committee approved a bill to facilitate removal of Pennsylvania from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a controversial multi-state data-sharing program supporters say helps states maintain accurate voter rolls. The bill would permit the state to use the Social Security death database and change-of-address records to identify voter-registry errors.
Read the full story
One day before Joe Biden heads to a Saturday Philadelphia rally, U.S. Representatives Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14) and Dan Meuser (R-PA-9) excoriated him in a press call over quality of life issues.
Joined by Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas, the two lawmakers blasted the president for seeking reelection in 2024, insisting Biden has made life worse for Americans on virtually every facet affected by public policy. They mentioned that inflation rages, real wages slump, energy production languishes, gas prices rise, fentanyl use spreads, reading and math scores tumble and crime swells.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
A Pennsylvania state senator this week announced he will soon reintroduce legislation he proposed last session to end use of election drop boxes and satellite offices.
In a memorandum asking colleagues to cosponsor his bill, Senator Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) characterized drop boxes where voters can deposit absentee ballots as fraught with security problems. Lawmakers never enacted a law authorizing counties to set up the receptacles, but the commonwealth’s Democrat-controlled executive branch issued guidance to counties in 2020 permitting drop boxes’ usage.
Read the full story
Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in the studio to recommend a strategy for the Republican Party’s going forward to win future elections.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania just completed its third year of no-excuse mail-in voting, with Democrats scoring major victories in statewide and legislative offices. According to a political strategist from the state’s southeast, one factor affecting the Democrats’ 2022 success was its engagement in a legal form of “ballot harvesting” in the suburbs west of Philadelphia.
Athan Koutsiouroumbas, a managing director of the Harrisburg-based consultancy Long Nyquist and Associates, refers in a Monday commentary for RealClearPennsylvania to Democrats’ efforts to encourage mail-in voting in Delaware County. He called the effort a “completely legal ballot-harvesting juggernaut.”
Read the full story
Days before the 2022 midterm elections, Pennsylvania Republican Senate leaders wrote to their commonwealth’s chief voting overseer seeking assurance that laws governing undated absentee ballots will be followed.
The letter from Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R-Greensburg) and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) goes on to urge acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) to follow official procedure on other electoral matters as well.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court this week ordered counties to decline to count any absentee or mail-in ballot delivered in an undated envelope.
State law, which has permitted no-excuse absentee voting since 2020, requires those not voting in person to place their ballot into a secrecy envelope before placing it into a return envelope. Voter must sign and date that outer envelope for their ballot to be valid under state statute.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania authorities contentiously combined voter registration and mail-in ballot applications into one document this month, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the latest in a series of disputed election-related policies.
The state’s Department of State issued an updated form Aug. 19 allowing citizens to register to vote and request a mail-in ballot, which had previously required multiple forms, The Federalist reported. Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan Marks said this was intended “to simplify the process,” but many county elections officials argued the change occurred without warning and demonstrated a continuing lack of respect for them, according to the Inquirer.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court on Friday ordered three counties that declined to count undated absentee ballots to count them.
Republican Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer issued the ruling affecting Berks, Fayette and Lancaster counties. Last month, Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) sued the three jurisdictions to compel them to include votes delivered in undated envelopes in their May 17 primary results.
Read the full story
This week’s decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholding Act 77 which legalized no-excuse absentee voting in the Keystone State is spurring Republican lawmakers to renew their push for election reform.
A Republican-led legislature passed and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf signed Act 77 three years ago. Moderate Democratic Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) initially drafted the bill to get rid of straight-party voting, a policy on which Republican legislators largely agreed with her. More Democrats came around to support the measure once a section was added allowing voters to cast mail-in ballots without providing a reason they could not come to the polls (i.e., illness, injury or travel).
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers are suing the commonwealth over its 2019 law expanding mail-in voting, arguing it’s invalid after a recent court ruling.
On Wednesday, 14 state Republicans filed a lawsuit against acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Leigh Chapman, a Democrat, to throw out the mail-in law.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Department of State this week filed a lawsuit against three counties, all controlled by Republicans, to count undated absentee ballots.
Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) wants Berks, Fayette and Lancaster counties to follow the rest of the state in counting votes delivered in undated envelopes toward the official tallies for candidates nominated in May 17’s primaries. A Pennsylvania law requiring absentee and mail-in voters to date their ballot envelope has underwent significant court scrutiny over the last two years.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s state Senate passed legislation this week that would permit a Pennsylvania voter to serve as a poll watcher in an election precinct outside of his or her county.
Current law lets candidates and parties appoint poll watchers — volunteers who are often party committee members — to election precincts only in those watchers’ respective counties. State guidance allows these appointees to “make good-faith challenges” to an elector’s residence, identity or voting eligibility.
Read the full story
A Cochise County Judge has sentenced a woman to probation for casting her dead mother’s early ballot.
A Cochise County Judge sentenced a woman to probation for illegally casting her dead mother’s early ballot in 2020.
“Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that 56-year-old Krista Michelle Conner of Cochise County was sentenced today (June 6, 2022) by Judge Timothy Dickerson of Cochise County Superior Court to three (3) years of supervised probation on one count of illegal voting, a class 6 felony, for illegally casting the early ballot of her deceased mother during the November 2020 general election. Conner’s voter registration was also revoked and may be reinstated upon completion of probation. As a condition of that probation, Conner was ordered to pay $890.00 in fines and surcharges and was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service,” according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).
“Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that 56-year-old Krista Michelle Conner of Cochise County was sentenced today (June 6, 2022) by Judge Timothy Dickerson of Cochise County Superior Court to three (3) years of supervised probation on one count of Illegal Voting, a Class 6 felony, for illegally casting the early ballot of her deceased mother during the November 2020 general election. Conner’s voter registration was also revoked and may be reinstated upon completion of probation. As a condition of that probation, Conner was ordered to pay $890.00 in fines and surcharges and was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service,” according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).
Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill (D) on Friday issued an opinion regarding a new statute that expands absentee voting, emphasizing that voters need not themselves be sick or away all day to vote by mail.
Merrill said she issued the interpretation to “more closely conform” the law, which Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed on April 8, to Article Sixth, Section 7 of the Connecticut Constitution which states, “In all elections of officers of the state, or members of the General Assembly, the votes of the electors shall be by ballot.”
Read the full story
Attorneys for Senate candidate Dave McCormick on Monday found themselves in the atypical position of arguing in Commonwealth Court alongside Pennsylvania’s Democratic Secretary of State about which ballots to count.
The Republican and former hedge-fund executive is challenging the vote-counting standard that has determined the gap of 922 votes between him and his leading primary opponent, celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz.
Read the full story
The Republican National Committee joined Pennsylvania’s Republican Party this week in a legal effort to effectively help Mehmet Oz sew up last Tuesday’s Senate primary election battle against rival Dave McCormick.
As of Tuesday afternoon, McCormick is 982 votes behind the celebrity surgeon, though vote counting hasn’t concluded. Tuesday marked the final day that absentee military ballots could arrive at their respective counties and still get counted. What impact those final military votes will have on the race remains to be seen, though it bears observing that McCormick himself served in the U.S. Army and noted that fact well throughout his campaign.
Read the full story
State Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA-York) told legislative colleagues on Monday that he will introduce a measure to ease the process by which Pennsylvanians can report voter fraud and other election-related problems.
The bill would require the Pennsylvania secretary of state to establish a 1-800 hotline that voters could call to note any alleged misconduct they encounter in the course of an election. The secretary would also need to host annual training sessions for county-level prosecutors on the commonwealth’s election rules.
Read the full story
A coalition of more than 70 grassroots organizations across Pennsylvania issued a declaration at the state’s Capitol Building in Harrisburg last week urging lawmakers to repeal no-excuse absentee voting.
The activists would end a provision of Act 77 of 2019, a law passed by the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly, which permits Keystone State residents to vote via absentee or mail-in ballot without stating an excuse. Formerly, valid reasons for voting away from the polls mainly included out-of-town travel and illness.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore and gubernatorial candidate Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room Thursday to discuss his proposed reforms to make elections more secure in his state.
Corman promised to call for a special legislative session on election-related legislation the day he takes office. Items he said he intends to address foremost are requiring identification of all voters, rescinding a state policy allowing people to vote by mail without submitting an excuse, banning absentee-ballot drop boxes and banning the use of private grants for election administration.
Read the full story
The 2020 U.S. election was unique in many respects, but its chief distinguishing feature is that it occurred during a full-scale pandemic. One consequence was that the election operated under regulations that changed how Americans vote. Some states bent voting rules to expand access. Some resorted to mail-in voting to ensure that everyone who wanted to vote could do so. These actions were, to some extent, understandable, but the resulting conditions were extraordinary, and the dramatic increase in mail-in voting created a major political phenomenon: the blue shift, in which late-counted ballots turn voting outcomes toward the Democrats.
On election night, vote totals initially looked good for President Donald Trump. But as mail-in votes rolled in, central swing states moved into Joe Biden’s column, and Biden won the election. The phenomenon disrupted expectations – and sowed distrust. Many of my Republican family members said, “It didn’t seem right. I knew something was wrong.” Trump, attuned to the emotions of his base, made use of this sentiment. He stoked suspicion that Democrats stole the election. The nightmarish result was the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Republican Senators this week celebrated their chamber’s passage of two pieces of election-security legislation.
One bill, sponsored by state Sen. Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro), would prohibit the use of drop boxes to collect mail-in and absentee ballots. The other, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Baker (R-Dallas) and Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-Jacobus), would bar state or county employees from approving the use of private donations to fund election administration.
Read the full story
Connecticut’s Democrat-controlled Senate this week sent sent legislation to expand absentee voting to Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D) desk.
The bill stops short of total no-excuse absentee voting—which the Connecticut Constitution prohibits—but significantly broadens the categories of those permitted to mail in their ballots. Not only will eligibility apply to those who are ill, disabled or serving actively in the Armed Forces, but it will also include those who are absent “from the town of such elector’s or person’s voting residence; [during all of the hours of voting].” (This component largely pertains to the many state residents who work in New York City.)
Read the full story
A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania administrator this week responded to the local Republican Party’s allegations of “ballot harvesting,” insisting that video surveillance does not show that it occurred.
As The Pennsylvania Daily Star reported, Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC) Chair Liz Preate Havey addressed the county Board of Commissioners last Thursday regarding numerous election-integrity concerns. She mentioned video footage of a woman depositing handfuls of ballots into a drop box in Upper Dublin Township in the run-up to the 2021 general election. Such drop boxes have been in use in Pennsylvania for absentee-ballot delivery since 2020.
Read the full story
NORRISTOWN, PA—Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s Republican Party yesterday asked the county’s Democrat-controlled Board of Elections to consider several election-security measures, mainly regarding absentee voting.
At a County Commissioners’ meeting, Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC) Chair Liz Preate Havey said the reforms her organization proposes will curb alleged breaches of law and foulups in administration that have already taken place in the county during recent elections.
Read the full story
Kari Lake may not be elected to office yet, but she is following through already on her vows to protect election integrity. The leading Arizona gubernatorial candidate filed an amicus curiae brief with the Arizona Supreme Court in the case Arizona Republican Party v. Hobbs, which asks the court to compel Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, to include signature verification procedures in the election procedures manual and remove the language she added authorizing the setup of unmonitored ballot drop boxes. Additionally, it challenges “no-excuse” early ballots as violating the Arizona Constitution.
Lake said in a statement, “Voters have made it very clear that they are demanding nothing less than completely secure elections and we’re going to give it to them come hell or high water.” She said a forensic investigation earlier this year along with a canvass of absentee voters, which uncovered tens of thousands of irregularities with ballots cast in the 2020 general election, compelled her to enter the lawsuit.
Read the full story
Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA), a national conservative nonprofit, began a tour of Pennsylvania Monday to emphasize the importance of election integrity.
TPPA kicked off the trek in Grove City and has since visited Du Bois, State College and Altoona. The organization plans to push eastward, penultimately visiting Philadelphia on March 29 and finally the state capital of Harrisburg on March 30. At each stop, organizers will impress upon audiences the need for both legislative reforms and for citizen involvement to improve voting and vote-count processes. Toward that end, TPPA is recruiting citizens for local election integrity task forces to aid area elections.
Read the full story
A Democrat member of the Georgia Board of Elections late Monday night celebrated the beginning of absentee voting for the state’s upcoming primary elections.
“I almost forgot-Happy First Day To Apply For An Absentee Ballot For The Georgia General Primary! (SB 202 shrank the timeframe for apply for an absentee ballot from 180 days in advance to 78.) Print your application here and mail to your county registrar,” Sara Tindall Ghazal said on Twitter.
Read the full story
In an attempt to justify universal mail-in voting, Arizona Democrats Thursday downplayed the ongoing issue with mail theft and crimes against mail carriers that are soaring nationwide.
“Note, these ‘drop boxes’ do not have 24-hour video surveillance and the world continues to turn,” Arizona’s House Democrats said on Twitter.
Read the full story
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that controversial mail-in voting laws will remain in place for now.
Republicans argue that those laws, which have been in place for two years and were struck down by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt on February 16, violate the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Read the full story
As Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) appeals a court ruling against no-excuse absentee voting, a state representative hopes to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to decisively end the practice.
A bill authored by Rep. Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon), who is also running for lieutenant governor, would explicitly limit mail-in voting to those who are sick, injured or traveling. This status quo existed before Wolf signed Act 77 in October 2019.
Read the full story
Although Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court on Friday invalidated the law that has allowed no-excuse mail-in voting since 2020, the state’s appeal of the ruling means the decision is not yet in effect.
State officials, represented by Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, will likely face a much friendlier forum in the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by Democrats in contrast to the Republican-majority Commonwealth Court. Democrats denounced the latter court’s ruling and pointed out that Republican legislators overwhelmingly voted for Act 77, which allowed Pennsylvanian’s who were not sick, injured or out of town to vote via absentee ballot.
Read the full story
Voters in Wisconsin will be able to use ballot drop boxes in the next election after all.
An appeals court in Madison on Monday unanimously ruled against a Waukesha County judge who said the drop boxes are not permitted under the state’s election laws.
The appeals court says there’s not enough time to let voters know that ballot drop boxes aren’t allowed. Some ballots for the February 15th primary election have already been mailed, and some of them say voters can return their ballots to drop boxes.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court this week ruled that 257 flawed ballots in a Lehigh County judgeship election cannot be counted, prompting Democratic candidate Zachary Cohen to announce a state Supreme-Court appeal.
Excluding these mail-in ballots, which contain no date on their return envelopes, puts Republican David Ritter 74 votes ahead of Cohen in their contest for Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas judge, in which about 22,000 total votes were cast. Ritter initially sued in county court to exclude 261 ballots, four of which displayed a date, albeit not on the correct line. Trial Judge Edward D. Reibman (D) handed down a ruling favorable to Cohen, spurring Ritter to appeal to the Commonwealth Court which handles litigation between governing entities, public officials and candidates.
Read the full story