ACLU Signals Effort to Target Pennsylvania Counties' Disparate 'Notice and Cure' Policies for Flawed Mail Ballots
The ACLU of Pennsylvania is suing one county, and may file more cases, in an effort to challenge a policy that it says disenfranchises voters who make an error when casting ballots by mail.
The case against Butler County, filed after the April primary, appears to be the start of a broader statewide effort by the group targeting the “notice and cure” process, a major gray area in state law that leads to uneven rules for voters across Pennsylvania.
Along with that lawsuit, the organization has signaled it is considering another lawsuit, and has been filing public records requests to identify more counties that don’t allow voters to correct flawed mail ballots or provide notice to voters that their ballot will be rejected. Such records requests are often a precursor to a lawsuit.
A legal effort that changes where the courts stand on notice and cure policies could have a profound impact. Since Pennsylvania enacted its no-excuse mail voting law in 2020, counties have rejected thousands of ballots because voters failed to sign or date the outer envelopes, or made another technical error. The rejection rate goes down significantly when a county notifies voters and allows them to fix, or cure, the error, according to county officials and a Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis of available data.
https://buckscountybeacon.com/2024/05/aclu-signals-effort-to-target-pennsylvania-counties-disparate-notice-and-cure-policies-for-flawed-mail-ballots/