Pennsylvania sued over 'restrictive' deadline for absentee ballot returns
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Voting rights advocates on Tuesday sued Pennsylvania over its deadlines to cast absentee ballots in elections, asking the commonwealth to overturn what they call "one of the most restrictive" deadlines in the country and alleging it disenfranchises eligible voters.
The plaintiffs, nine of whom are residents who applied for absentee ballots on time but missed the state's deadline for returning them, are asking the court to rule the deadline unconstitutional in violation of the state constitution's guarantee of "free and equal" elections and equal protections under the law.
Represented in part by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the plaintiffs have taken issue with what the ACLU calls the "unreasonably early deadline" for returning absentee ballots, according to an ACLU release.
According to the lawsuit, Pennsylvania has the earliest deadline in the nation for returning absentee ballots; they must be received by county election bureaus by 5 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day.
- more at link -
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2018/11/13/Pennsylvania-lawsuit-sued-restrictive-deadline-absentee-ballot-returns/stories/201811130138
In PA we don't have early or mail-in voting, so the absentee ballot is the only way for shut-ins, out-of-state students, people on military duty, workers who work inconvenient hours, among many others with GOOD REASONS to have a chance to vote.
When the absentee ballot allows only 48 hours to respond then it's too restrictive and it denies our citizens of their right to vote. It's not right and it must be challenged in court.
iluvtennis
(19,843 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,732 posts)In the 2008 general, I had requested an absentee ballot well in advance (at least 30 days) as a result of an ad-hoc work-related trip where I would be out of town election day and couldn't get to the Board of Elections during my work day... and it never came until the day I had left to go out of town (where I had already left that morning before the mail came).
As I found out later, they were totally backlogged that month and had run out of ballots to mail out in time.
RobinA
(9,888 posts)but Im not sure it will make that much difference. As a Pennsylvanian who has voted absentee, if you want to do it you can get it done, its no great hardship. Procrastinators gonna procrastinate, whether the deadline is before the election, on the Election Day, or a month and a half after the election.
FakeNoose
(32,617 posts)Then absentee balloting wouldn't even be necessary. The added bonus: we'd have all paper ballots too.