A Philadelphia election official said Saturday that 3,400 mail-in ballots could potentially be rejected due to incorrect information and missing dates.
Philadelphia City Commissioners Chairwoman Lisa Deeley told “CNN This Morning” Monday that the voters with invalid ballots have been placed on a list. She urged these individuals to go to city hall if their mail-in ballots have the wrong date, but warned that many voters may have submitted their ballots weeks ago or are “out of town.” She said the lack of “common sense clarity” is a “tragedy” for the voters.
“This really creates a really unfair disenfranchisement to thousands of voters not only here in Philadelphia but across the Commonwealth,” Deeley said.
In a Tuesday ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court barred state officials from counting ballots with incorrect or missing information on the return envelope. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of Women Voters have challenged the ruling in federal court, calling the missing or incorrect date “a meaningless technicality,” according to CNN.
“I am extremely disappointed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision with regard to undated and incorrectly dated ballots,” Deeley said in a Saturday statement, according to CNN. “Handwritten dates are not material and the lack of such a date should not be a reason to disenfranchise a voter.”
Allegheny County published two lists of around 1,000 voters who had ballots with an incorrect date or no date at all on the envelope, according to the city’s website. Voters are able to fix their ballots at the County Office Building in downtown Pittsburgh on Monday or Tuesday.
Officials have said the number of at-risk ballots will be counted as they are mailed in to the commissioner’s office, CNN reported.
She also criticized her state for lacking “common sense legislation” to allow the commissioners office to begin the vote counting process earlier, leading to the possibility of a delayed result. The mail-in ballots cannot be counted until Election Day, slowing down the process.
Nearly 1.4 million voters requested mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, with an overwhelming majority being requested by Democrats, Spotlight PA reported. Democrats requested nearly one million ballots while just 300,000 were sent to Republicans. Voters and candidates, particularly Republicans, are concerned about the possible voter fraud and the flawed counting of votes due to mail-in ballots.
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