[EL] Key Pa. Supreme Court ruling

[Stephanie Singer]

Stephanie Singer <https://www.pdx.edu/profile/stephanie-singer>
Research Assistant Professor, Portland State University
Former Chair, Philadelphia County Board of Elections


> On Sep 17, 2020, at 1:17 PM, Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu> wrote:
> 
> From a policy (not a legal) perspective, I have always been particularly concerned this election about late-counted ballots (maybe the issue won’t matter in the end, because few Pennsylvania voters will mail ballots back at the last minute).  

Thanks for this interesting post. 

The importance of ballots being counted goes beyond who wins any particular contest. Rejected ballots will affect individuals' (or a zip code’s) voter history on the voter file, which will affect the amount of attention they get from future political campaigns. Given the danger of selective removal of sorting machines, or even the appearance of selective removal of sorting machines in a town with a documented history of selective deployment of broken voting machines, the handling of last minute ballots may be significant.

And these concerns are exacerbated by the delay in mailing out ballots in the first place, due to the court challenge.

In 2021 and 2022, there will be many contests (for poll worker positions and party committee positions) that have often been decided in the past by a single vote or a coin flip.

—Stephanie
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