Pennsylvanians abroad - you may have heard recently about the mass challenge made against overseas Pennsylvania voter ballots. Right wing voter suppression organizers appear to have filed challenges against more than 3600 voters abroad, falsely stating that these voters are ineligible to vote, and that their ballots should be rejected.
Important to know
- These challenges are spurious, and without grounds.
- Voters living abroad have the right to vote in federal elections thanks to federal law. State law does not override that right.
- The goal of these challenges is to disenfranchise voters abroad through intimidation, call into question their right to vote, and challenge their ballots being counted.
- This attempt to challenge the eligibility of voters abroad is a clear violation of U.S. citizen rights and federal law, including UOCAVA, HAVA, and MOVE.
- Pennsylvania is holding hearings in impacted counties this week to review these challenges and gather statements from challenged voters.
- Democrats Abroad stands in support of you and your vote, and will work with you to ensure that your vote is accepted and counted.
Next steps
If you have received a notification about your ballot being challenged, please get in touch with Democrats Abroad at [email protected].
The ACLU and other non-partisan voter rights groups are fighting back against these challenges and will be participating in hearings across Pennsylvania counties this week. If you are interested in making a statement and filing it for the record with your county, please let us know in your email.
Even though these challenges are baseless, making such statements can be important both for helping the judge render a decision and for the record.
More about the challenges
Over the weekend Pennsylvania voters living abroad and voting as “return not certain” began receiving emails noting that their ballot was being challenged. These emails told blatant falsehoods, claiming that a voter was not registered to vote as they no longer lived in the state. Some of the emails included alarming language suggesting that accepting their ballots might constitute a felony offense. This language was clearly designed to intimidate voters abroad, and discourage them from exercising their rights.
So far voters and county officials from the following counties have received challenges: Allegheny, Bucks, Lancaster, Lehigh, York, Cumberland, Dauphin, Beaver, Centre, and Lycoming.
These challenges blatantly disregard federal law which specifically allows voters abroad to vote in federal elections in the states where they last resided before moving abroad. Acts which protect this right include the 1986 Uniformed Citizens Abroad Absentee Voter Act (UOCAVA), 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE).