Thousands of Pa. mail ballot applications challenged by right-wing activists

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Thousands of mail ballot applications across Pennsylvania have been challenged, in many instances by right-wing activists, in what the state calls a “bad-faith” coordinated effort accusing the voters of being ineligible based on their address or voter registration status.

At least 14 counties have received the challenges seeking to invalidate mail ballots, ranging from a dozen in Clinton County to more than 1,300 in Bucks County. Each challenge cites evidence showing the voter had moved overseas or had submitted a change of address request with the U.S. Postal Service. Neither scenario, however, necessarily makes a voter ineligible to cast a ballot in Pennsylvania.

According to data provided by the counties, as well as the Department of State, more than 4,000 ballot applications were challenged by Friday’s deadline. It is unclear how many ballots may be at risk of being disqualified, as not all 4,000 of those voters may have returned their ballots yet.

“Throughout the day on Friday, several bad-faith mass challenges were filed in a coordinated effort in counties across the Commonwealth to question the qualifications of thousands of registered Pennsylvania voters who applied to vote by mail ballot,” said Amy Gulli, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State. “These challenges are based on theories that courts have repeatedly rejected.”

The number marks an increase over an original group of ballot challenges that came to light late last month after election departments in southeast Pennsylvania began processing the challenges.

Pennsylvania law requires that someone must be a resident of Pennsylvania to be an eligible voter. It also established a process by which — for a fee of $10 — a person’s application for a mail ballot can be challenged on the grounds that the applicant is not qualified to vote. County officials notify voters whose eligibility to vote by mail is being challenged. If the challenges succeed, it means the voters’ ballots would not be counted.

Counties will need to hold hearings to determine the validity of the challenges, during which voters may respond to the accusation against them. Many counties have yet to schedule those hearings, or are setting them for after Election Day. In at least one county that has already held its hearing, Chester County, the challenges were dismissed.

Pennsylvania is arguably the most pivotal battleground state this year, and its 19 electoral votes could determine who sits in the Oval Office come Jan. 20. If the presidential race is as close as polls are suggesting, even relatively small batches of ballots could prove consequential, which has led to sustained legal disputes over ballots at risk of being rejected for various reasons.

The bulk of the new challenges, first reported on by LancasterOnline, are claiming that because the voter is living outside the United States and is not technically eligible to register as a Pennsylvania voter, they should not be eligible to vote. The 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a federal law commonly referred to as UOCAVA, established that U.S. citizens and military personnel living overseas could still vote by absentee ballot in the state that they last lived. These types of voters are known as “federal only” voters, since they can participate only in federal races like president, but not local races.

“I’ve been … taking frantic phone calls from overseas from all of these people,” said Forrest Lehman, election director in Lycoming County, which received 71 challenges. “It’s been emotionally draining.”

Lehman said he has heard from voters who were sent overseas during military service and then retired in that country, stayed in another country after falling in love with someone there, or otherwise moved but still consider the United States a second home.

Other challenges were based on a comparison of the voters’ addresses in the state’s mail ballot request file and addresses connected to the voter’s name in a U.S. Postal Service database, a method of comparison that experts and officials have criticized for its propensity to produce false matches or miss the nuance of a person’s situation that led them to request a change in their mailing address.

Who’s behind the challenges, and why

The challenges appear to be part of a statewide, coordinated effort. Challenge petitions reviewed by Votebeat and Spotlight PA, and information provided by county officials, show they came from individuals associated with the Election Research Institute and PA Fair Elections, two groups led by Heather Honey, a Pennsylvania researcher whose data analysis methods have produced inaccurate or flawed conclusions in the past. It is unclear if Honey provided the research and analysis for the challenges.

Honey did not respond to a request for comment, but the Philadelphia Inquirer reported PA Fair Elections denied filing any change-of-address challenges or having any filed on its behalf.

UOCAVA challenge petitions in Lycoming County that Votebeat and Spotlight PA reviewed show they were filed by Karen DiSalvo of the Election Research Institute.

Diane Houser, who filed challenges in Chester County based on U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data, confirmed at a hearing Friday that she was working with PA Fair Elections and the challenges were part of a “statewide effort.” Challenges in Delaware County were filed by Patricia Bleasdale, who has also attended PA Fair Elections meetings. Twenty-eight challenges were filed on Friday in Allegheny by Charles Faltenovich, according to a spokesperson for the county. Faltenovich is also associated with PA Fair Elections.

Bleasdale and Faltenovich did not immediately return separate requests for comment.

It is unclear who filed challenges in the other counties, as many counties did not respond to inquiries from the news organizations over the weekend.

PA Fair Elections was also part of a lawsuit in federal court targeting UOCAVA voters that a judge dismissed last week. Honey is a plaintiff in a pending lawsuit in state court that is challenging the state’s process for registering UOCAVA voters, and DiSalvo is listed as an attorney on that case.

Marian Schneider, senior voting rights policy counsel at the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said federal law protects the rights of these citizens to participate in federal elections, even if they are not registered in Pennsylvania.

The voters cannot register to vote, as they are not Pennsylvania residents. But UOCAVA gives overseas citizens the right to vote in their last state they lived in, Schneider said.

“It’s people who don’t understand the law or didn’t take time to research the law that are filing these challenges, just because they are not in the voter registration database,” she said. “These are misguided attempts to silence the voice of voters and these challenges represent a misunderstanding of what their status is and what the law is.”

The ACLU sent a letter to all 67 counties on Sunday notifying them that the challenges, if they received them, were “legally deficient” and cautioned counties against preventing overseas voters from voting based on the challenges.

DiSalvo disputes that reading of the law.

“UOCAVA protects the rights of U.S. citizens living abroad — but UOCAVA requires registration,” DiSalvo said in an email interview. UOCAVA protects overseas voters by mandating that states accept and process valid voter registration applications.”

DiSalvo said the county should rectify this by simply processing their voter registrations. She did not respond to questions about how she obtained the list of voters to challenge or how the challenges were being funded. She also said she filed her challenges in Lycoming as an individual, not as part of any group or organization, although she used her Election Research Institute email when filling out the form.

Sarah MacMillin is the daughter of one such challenged voter, an 80-year-old U.S. citizen living in France. She said that when her mother received an email informing her that her ballot was being challenged, she thought voting this year would be “too tough” and there was “nothing [she] could do.”

“The whole thing makes her a bit nervous,” she said of her mother, who the family asked not be named but Votebeat and Spotlight PA confirmed is the subject of a challenge. “It’s tiring for her.”

MacMillin said she and her sisters are working to make sure their mother’s vote is counted, but she worries that the challenges could discourage other elderly voters from participating since it mentions fines and jail time, though they are related to election officials.

“If I was an 80-year-old woman receiving that, I would think ‘Oh my gosh, something has gone wrong and they’re going to fine me $15,000,’” she said.

Honey has been focused on UOCAVA voters for years. In addition to authoring a report on the subject published in September 2022, she filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Department of State, with the support of an attorney from the Thomas More Society. It alleged the department was violating federal law by not requiring identification for some overseas voters.

She’s also exporting this advocacy to states outside Pennsylvania. In August 2023, she gave a presentation on overseas voters to the Virginia coalition affiliated with an election integrity network run by Cleta Mitchell, a right-wing election attorney and ally of Donald Trump, according to records reviewed by Documented, a Washington-based investigative news outlet.

A now-deleted post from the North Carolina-based Asheville Tea Party shows that she also gave a presentation at Mitchell’s request in April 2023 about military and overseas voters.

Challenges fail under first round of scrutiny

At least one batch of the challenges has failed. Chester County held a hearing Friday on the 212 challenges it received, which were based on USPS change-of-address data.

Many voters whose eligibility was in question appeared at the hearing to testify and provide evidence showing that they were in fact Chester County residents, and therefore eligible. Some said they had used the U.S. Postal Service change-of-address form while they were traveling and needed their mail to go somewhere else, were temporarily out of state attending school, or traveling with their spouses in the military.

“I wanted to prove that this is who you’re impacting,” Ana Harley said at the hearing. She explained that she has to relocate frequently because her husband is in the Navy, but her permanent residence is in Chester County. “I have the privilege to be here, but others don’t.”

Several other voters spoke, and county officials questioned the veracity of the evidence of many other challenges Houser made, leading Houser to withdraw roughly 30 challenges.

The Chester County Board of Elections dismissed the remaining challenges.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at [email protected].