Pennsylvania voters can cast a provisional ballot if their mail ballot is rejected, court says

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A court decided Thursday that voters in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania can cast provisional ballots in place of mail-in ballots that are rejected for a garden-variety mistake they made when they returned it, according to lawyers in the case.

Democrats typically outvote Republicans by mail by about 3-to-1 in Pennsylvania, and the decision by a state Commonwealth Court panel could mean that hundreds or thousands more votes are counted in November’s election, when the state is expected to play an outsized role in picking the next president.

The three-member panel ruled that nothing in state law prevented Republican-controlled Butler County from counting two voters’ provisional ballots in the April 23 primary election, even if state law is ambiguous.

A provisional ballot is typically cast at a polling place on Election Day and is separated from regular ballots in cases when elections workers need more time to determine a voter’s eligibility to vote.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed by two Butler County voters who received an automatic email before the primary election telling them that their mail-in ballots had been rejected because they hadn’t put them in a blank “secrecy” envelope that is supposed to go inside the ballot return envelope.

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