Pennsylvania Court Drops Bombshell Ruling: Digital Images of Completed Absentee and Mail-In Ballots are Public Records

In a landmark decision, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ruled that digital images of completed absentee and mail-in ballots are to be considered public records.

This pivotal ruling stems from a case involving appellant Michelle Previte, who sought to obtain electronic copies of these ballots from the 2020 General Election via Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law (RTKL).

The case began when Previte submitted RTKL requests to the Erie County Board of Elections, seeking access to digital images of all mail-in and absentee ballots, as well as images of the outer envelopes and polling place ballots from the November 2020 election.

The Board denied her request, arguing that these documents were not public records under Section 308 of the Pennsylvania Election Code. Previte then appealed to the Office of Open Records (OOR), which sided with her for the mail-in and absentee ballots but upheld the denial for polling place ballots.

The Erie County Board of Elections took the matter to the Court of Common Pleas, which ruled in favor of the Board.

However, this decision was overturned by the Commonwealth Court on Wednesday, which found that the digital images of absentee and mail-in ballots are indeed public records.

The court determined that these images fall under the purview of the Right-to-Know Law (RTKL), which mandates public access to government records unless explicitly exempted by law.

Judge Ellen Ceisler, who authored the majority opinion, said that completed absentee and mail-in ballots, once removed from ballot boxes or voting machines, are to be treated as public records and can be obtained through an RTKL request as long as they follow the Election Code’s rules of disclosure and do not include any information that identifies (or is reasonably likely to facilitate the identification of) the individuals who cast those ballots.

Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Natalie Clawson, praised this ruling, stating, “Huge win for election integrity in Pennsylvania! Utah needs to follow Pennsylvania’s example and declare that the digital images of mail-in ballots are public record.”

She added, “Two things can be true: the Elections images must be auditable to restore trust AND the individual’s vote is must be kept secret. Utah.. let’s follow Pennsylvania’s lead. There is evidence that some precincts in Salt Lake Co had 117% voter turnout in 2020 for withheld voters. This is clearly a problem. The public and a third party needs to be able to audit our elections.”

Investigative reporter Behizy wrote on X, “What I love about this ruling is that it seems like the Appellate judges really took their time to understand the issue at hand. Section 308 of Pennsylvania’s election code says everything is public record “except the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines and records of assisted voters,”

“The lower court used some twisted logic to say the ballot images were somehow “contents of voting machines and, thus, were shielded from RTKL requests.” Yes, images of the ballots are taken by the machine but they’re not part of the machine. The pictures you take with your phone aren’t part of your phone, that’s nonsensical to think but these are the lengths some judges and election officials are willing to go to conceal the truth.”

Via Behizy:

What I love about this ruling is that it seems like the Appellate judges really took their time to understand the issue at hand

Section 308 of Pennsylvania’s election code says everything is public record “except the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines and records of… pic.twitter.com/w6P4vgyjSK

— George (@BehizyTweets) August 1, 2024

Read the opinion below:

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