Washington Post: Philadelphia election official warns ‘naked ballots’ may lead to tens of thousands of rejected ballots for November

09.25.2020 / By Michelle Ye Hee Lee
Washington Post: Philadelphia election official warns ‘naked ballots’ may lead to tens of thousands of rejected ballots for November

“The silver lining of this decision from the state Supreme Court is now that we know the rules, we can educate voters about the rules,” said Suzanne Almeida, director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, a good-government group that works on voter access matters. “And I have every confidence that voters can learn the rules right. There are plenty of ways, plenty of places in election law where we require voters to know specific steps that they need to take. This is just one more of those,” Almeida said.

The top election official in Philadelphia is warning that a minor technicality in a new state Supreme Court ruling could cause as many as 100,000 mailed ballots to be rejected statewide in the November election, a potentially significant statistic for a state that President Trump won by about 44,000 votes in 2016.

Lisa Deeley, the Democratic chairwoman of Philadelphia’s election board, warned in a letter to lawmakers this week that the court’s requirement of an additional envelope for voters to mail back with their ballots could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters in her city and many more statewide.

At issue is the use of “secrecy envelopes,” which are designed to protect the privacy of the voter. A voter returning an absentee ballot must insert the ballot into the secrecy envelope, and then insert that envelope into a larger envelope that carries the mailing address and postage.

For the state’s primary election, local election officials were allowed to accept ballots that were returned without the inner envelope — commonly referred to as “naked ballots” — to accommodate the surge of voters in Pennsylvania who cast absentee ballots for the first time because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But under last week’s court ruling, ballots sent back to election officials without the inner envelope will be rejected, with no opportunity for voters to rectify the problem to make sure their vote is counted. …

Voting-rights advocates said they are concerned with requirements that create more opportunities for voters to make mistakes and potentially make it less likely for their ballot to count.

But they said they are hopeful that the new state Supreme Court ruling has drawn new focus on the envelope requirement and that voters pay attention before they return their ballots to the election officials.

“The silver lining of this decision from the state Supreme Court is now that we know the rules, we can educate voters about the rules,” said Suzanne Almeida, director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, a good-government group that works on voter access matters.

“And I have every confidence that voters can learn the rules right. There are plenty of ways, plenty of places in election law where we require voters to know specific steps that they need to take. This is just one more of those,” Almeida said.

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