A Republican state senator has challenged dozens of overseas mail ballot applications in Centre County based on voter registration status, according to a county spokesperson.
State Sen. Cris Dush, who represents half of Centre County, submitted 77 unique challenges on Friday to the county’s Elections Office, according to a statement from the county on Monday afternoon. Dush submitted a total of 124 challenges, but 47 were duplicates.
The challenges center on what are known as “federal voters,” or citizens who are living overseas indefinitely. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Acts permits U.S. citizens and military personnel living overseas to vote by absentee ballot in the state where they last lived, but can only vote in federal races.
Centre County’s Board of Elections, which is comprised of the county’s three commissioners, will hold a hearing on the challenges at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
Centre County is among at least 14 in Pennsylvania that received about 4,000 challenges before Friday’s deadline, mostly based on registration status of overseas citizens. Some other challenges were based on change of address forms that did not necessarily indicate the voter had moved.
While the petitioners have been identified in some counties, who filed challenges in others was not yet clear.
Pennsylvania’s Department of State called the challenges a “bad-faith” and “coordinated” effort to disenfranchise federal voters who are legally entitled to cast a ballot.
“These challenges are based on theories that courts have repeatedly rejected,” Amy Gulli, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State, told Spotlight PA.
The ACLU of Pennsylvania sent a letter to all 67 Pennsylvania counties on Sunday detailing why those challenges are illegal under federal law.
“Those living abroad permanently are entitled to vote in federal elections, like President and congressional offices. The place of residency is the last known U.S. address,” Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “The people who filed the approximately 3600 Pennsylvania challenges to overseas voters are either profoundly ignorant of longstanding law or intent on creating confusion and undermining trust in elections. Neither is acceptable, and these challenges should be summarily dismissed. We will fight for all eligible citizens to vote and have their votes counted.”
The challenges represent a “a “deep misunderstanding of long-established law or an attempt to silence the voices of eligible American voters abroad,” Amy Widestrom, executive director of League of Women Voters Pennsylvania, said in a statement.
“Our election system includes robust safeguards to ensure that only eligible voters can participate, no matter where they live,” Widestrom said. “We trust the system and the professionalism of the dedicated workers who are enforcing these safeguards so all voices can be heard.”
Overseas citizen and military voters were the subject of a recent lawsuit brought by six Republican congressmen from Pennsylvania, including U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, who sought to force the state to institute new requirements for verifying the identity and eligibility of those voters. A federal judge dismissed the suit last week, saying there were no grounds to sue and that the suit was brought too close to Election Day.
