The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday granted permission to put a temporary vote at their polling location in a broken choice. Three of the seven magistrates made dissented remarks.
To keep private, mail-in votes are returned in two envelopes: an internal, privacy envelope, and the inner mailing box. Voters in Pennsylvania are required to sign their names and date their vote script on the exterior box.
This situation started in Butler County where two citizens, Faith Genser and Frank Matis, voted by mail in the 2024 major vote. Each voter did not use the secret box, but instead placed their completed vote immediately inside the mailing envelopes.
That is a dressed vote. The person opening the outside envelope can see both the vote options and the title on the ballot, which destroys the privacy. It is not counted because it is an insufficient vote.  ,
When these votes were delivered to the Butler County election board, a system that scanned the envelopes determined that neither one lacked a secret envelope. Their seats were postponed because there was no secret packet, as was noted in the state’s computer system. The Department of State’s automatic notification to each voting affected by this led to the state machine method.
The voter is informed that their ballot wo n’t be counted because there is n’t a secret envelope.
” After your vote was received by BUTLER County, it received a fresh position”, the recognize said. Your ballot wo n’t be counted because it was n’t delivered in a sealed envelope. You may go to your polling place on Election Day and cast a provisional ballot if you have n’t had enough time to request a new ballot before April 16, 2024, or if the deadline has passed.
These citizens went to their electoral locations and cast temporary votes on Primary Election Day, April 23. Each was informed that their temporary ballots were never taken into account. They went to court in a row and requested that their votes be tallied. They claimed that the union’s decision to reject their temporary votes unjustly disenfranchised them.
A temporary poll may not be counted under a temporary ballot under Pennsylvania law if” the elector’s absentee vote or mail-in vote is proper received by a state board of elections.”
The votes arrived on time. However, they were ineligible to be taken into account. Perhaps a temporary vote without a secret box is prohibited under that same section of the law.
If a voting sends a nude vote that needs to be thrown out, temporary ballots in Pennsylvania will be counted after a majority of the court’s confirmations.
The majority of voters discover that electors who mail in ballots without a secret packet have submitted “void mail-in ballots” that cannot be given authorized effect. Election officials omitted to throw a vote because they failed to comply with the required privacy box condition. Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy wrote in opposition. The majority of people support this argument, saying that no vote received by 8 p.m. on Election Day because the decision that the confidentiality box was not used, as a matter of laws resulted in the resolution of the timeliness issue.
She described the majority’s decision to lead the counting of interim ballots as an “unconstitutional intrusion” into the role that state legislatures are entrusted with by the federal Constitution.
The Election Code is clear and unambiguous, Justice Kevin Brobson said in his protest. Because the code specifically forbids the state board from counting the temporary ballots, the state table lacked the authority to count them.
Beth Brelje covers The Federalist’s votes coverage. She is an award-winning analytical columnist with years of internet experience.