The elected county commissioners of a western Pennsylvania county were sued on Monday for a policy that was adopted for the primary this year. People whose mail-in votes were disqualified due to technical violations claim they were not informed early enough to correct errors.

The Center for Coalfield Justice, the NAACP local branch and seven disqualified primary voters sued Washington County’s Election Board for what they referred to as “systematic and deliberately efforts” to hide the policy. They claimed that the staff at the elections office were instructed not to inform voters that they made mistakes that prevented their vote from being counted.

In a lawsuit filed at the county common pleas, it was claimed that this policy disenfranchised 259 voters. Many of these voters are unaware of this. According to the lawsuit, seven voters, aged 45-85, had their mail in ballots invalidated due to incomplete or missing dates. The lawsuit also stated that one voter failed to sign on the envelope’s exterior and another signed the wrong place.

The lawsuit alleged that “due to the board’s action, voters were not informed of their ballot not being counted and were denied the chance to protect their voting rights by using a statutory procedure: voting with a provisional ballot.”

The lawsuit aims to declare Washington County’s policy unconstitutional, as it violates due process rights. It also aims to stop the elections board from misleading voters or concealing information. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Public Interest Law Center, and Philadelphia-based Dechert.

Washington County notified voters that their ballots had been filled out incorrectly. They were given the opportunity to correct them up until this year’s primary on April 23. Washington County commissioners decided 2-1 that voters would not be allowed to correct incorrect ballots for this year’s primaries. Instead, staff marked them as “received” in the state elections software. This status does not inform voters that their ballots will not be counted. The two Republican Commissioners were for it, and the Democrat was against.

The lawsuit claims that no other county in Pennsylvania “actively hides the insufficiency” of a mail-in voter’s ballot, particularly when a caller calls the county elections office to ask if their mail-in vote will be counted.

Gary Sweat, the county’s attorney, and Washington Board of Commissioners chairman Nick Sherman, both Republicans, were contacted Monday to request comment. ACLU lawyer says attempts to engage commissioners in the discussion on this issue were unsuccessful.

Bruce Jacobs (65), a retired occupational therapist and one of the plaintiffs in the case, stated that he was informed after the primary had ended that his vote was invalidated for failing to sign and date the envelope. He claimed he was deceived, and that his rights had been denied.

Jacobs stated that “county officials have undermined the rights of people to our elections’ dignity.” “I believe this needs to change.”

Pennsylvania’s 2019 law, which also banned straight party ticket voting (a Republican goal), made mail-in votes universal. This was a Democratic priority. A few months later the pandemic hit, causing a surge in mail-in votes. Pennsylvania Democrats voted by mail in subsequent elections at a much higher rate than Republicans.

A series of lawsuits have been filed over the process, mainly regarding whether or not errors made in the outer envelope of the return can invalidate a ballot. In early this year, 3rd U.S. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a requirement that envelopes must contain handwritten dates.

According to officials from the state, the redesigned envelopes on the exterior of the ballots helped reduce the number of ballots that were rejected during the primary in April.

Advocates have stated that older voters are more likely to submit ballot envelopes with dates incorrect or missing.