HARRISBURG, Pa. — Counties in Philadelphia’s suburbs are being asked to throw out the mail-in ballot applications of hundreds of voters in what the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said are mass-produced and illegal challenges.
The challenges question the voter’s residence based on a supposed match with a U.S. Postal Service change-of-address database.
Diane Houser, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who filed over 200 of the challenges in Chester County, said the challenges are nonpartisan and from a grassroots network targeting the ballot applications of people who moved out of state.
However, the ACLU said the challenges are illegal because voters can only be challenged on their qualifications to register to vote. Friday is the deadline for such challenges, which the ACLU said must be based on specific evidence that a certain would-be voter is not eligible to vote.
The challenges are based on a faulty premise that someone is moving out-of-state permanently because the change-of-address forms are also designed to help someone get their mail forwarded, the ACLU said.
Someone in the database may be temporarily relocating for school, military service or other purposes, as opposed to permanently changing their residence, the ACLU wrote in a letter to counties.
“There are lots of reasons you could be on that list and still be eligible and registered to vote in Pennsylvania,” Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.
The challenges are just one front in various legal disputes over which mail-in ballots can be counted in a state that is expected to be critical in deciding the winner of the presidential election.
The counties thus far receiving the challenges are in Philadelphia’s heavily populated and left-leaning suburbs where voters in 2020’s presidential election heavily supported Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.
The counties receiving them — Bucks and Chester counties — expect their three-member elections boards to consider the challenges at a public meeting.
Bucks County reported receiving 191 complaints from a person it declined to identify, while Houser said complaints will be filed in Montgomery and Delaware counties. Those counties did not report receiving complaints as of Tuesday.
Still, deeming any of those voters ineligible or rejecting their ballot based on the challenge alone would violate federal and state law, the ACLU said.
People also are receiving associated letters from “a friend in Pennsylvania” advising them to cancel their voter registration if they have moved out of state, Walczak said.
Walczak said voters of various party registrations had been challenged, but it skewed heavily to Democrats because Democrats vote more heavily by mail than Republicans.
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Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter.
