Penn Capital-Star: Pa. Supreme Court to decide whether Butler County must allow provisional ballots

Ian Karbal of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports on the case in front of the  Pennsylvania Supreme Court that would allow voters who make disqualifying mistakes on their mail-in ballots to be allowed to vote provisionally.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Friday that it will take up a case to decide whether Pennsylvania counties must allow voters who make disqualifying mistakes filling out their mail-in ballots to vote provisionally.

The ruling is only the latest in a string of court cases over how counties should handle mail-in ballots if voters err in filling them out, and what options voters have if they make mistakes. The ultimate decisions will likely have an impact on the administration of the 2024 election.

The case was originally brought by two voters in Butler County, represented by civil rights groups, who returned their mail-in ballots without the required secrecy envelope. Both were made aware of their mistakes and went to their polling places to cast provisional ballots, but those were rejected by the elections board.

Earlier this month, the Commonwealth Court ruled that their ballots had to be counted. But the Butler County Board of Elections, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania appealed to the state Supreme Court.

A provisional ballot can be filled out at a polling place if a voter is concerned that their vote will not be counted because of issues like mail-in ballot errors or voter eligibility. If the voter is found to in fact be eligible to vote, and that they haven’t already submitted a correctly filled-in ballot, typically their provisional ballot will be counted.