Voter suppression efforts ARE alive and ongoing by Republicans who are looking for ANYWAY to cut back Democrat efforts to increase voting for the November 3rd election..…
A Pennsylvania election official said Monday that the state’s recent ruling governing so-called “naked ballots”—mandating that any ballots that arrive without a proper envelope must be discounted—could cause more than 100,000 mail-in ballots to be rejected statewide and could swing the presidential election because of the Pennsylvania’s key role as a swing state.
Mail-in primary election ballots are processed in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on May 28, 2020.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KEY FACTS
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling declared that mail-in ballots cannot be counted if they’re returned without a secrecy envelope, an extra envelope that the ballot goes in before it is placed in a larger mailing envelope.
The ruling was a win for the Trump campaign and Republican Party in their broader legal effort against mail-in voting rules, as they claim that ballots returned without the envelope will display personal voter information and be more susceptible to voter fraud.
In a letter to state legislative leaders, Philadelphia elections chief Lisa Deeley calculated that the ruling would likely result in 30,000 to 40,000 ballots getting rejected in Philadelphia alone—based on a 2019 election in which 6.4% of ballots were returned without the envelope—and potentially more than 100,000 statewide.
The high level of expected rejections may result in “electoral chaos” and a “significant post-election legal controversy, the likes of which we have not seen since Florida in 2000,” Deeley warned.
Deeley argued that secrecy envelopes are a “vestige of the past” that will make counting ballots take twice as long, cost thousands of dollars and only serve to “disenfranchise” voters, calling on legislators to urgently pass legislation that would eliminate the envelopes.
BIG NUMBER
16. That’s the number of states that are required to use secrecy envelopes for absentee ballots, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while other states have different measures in place to ensure voters’ privacy as ballots are opened….
Dave Wasserman
@Redistrict
If you’re not up to speed on this situation, here’s a good explainer by
@Elaijuh
. The “naked ballot” rate has commonly been 5-6% in the past. Except this time 1) PA’s mail ballot share is about to go up tenfold and 2) naked ballots won’t count.
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Anything that affects Pennsylvania (even say to the tune of a 1% shift there) is a big deal.
Looks like Trump is going to win PA.
I’m on for Joe Biden WINS Pa…….
Dave Wasserman
@Redistrict
We don’t know to what extent education efforts by Dems/others will rein in this %. It’s also possible November-not-June voters will be even less familiar w/ mail rules and cast naked ballots at *higher* rates.
What we do know: these rejected ballots will be *heavily* pro-Biden.
I wonder what the proportion of invalid ballots is within the T, compared to the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions [SE & SW Pa]. Of course a lot of those in the T are going to chance it and vote in person on or before Election Day.
We have early voting in NY starting Oct 24…..
I believe that in person voting numbers were VERY HIGH in the midterms …
They were high in the primaries also…
Judges keep knocking down Republican efforts to suppress the vote…
If Trump thinks they will help him he’s gonna be surprised….
Jim Sciutto
@jimsciutto
New: Federal judge has denied Trump campaign & Republican Party’s bid to make ballot dropboxes in Pennsylvania unconstitutional, in a major ruling Saturday that essentially ends controversy over how voting in Pennsylvania will take place.