Mariam Larson lives in British Columbia, Canada, but has been voting by mail in Pennsylvania for decades.
As with every federal election, I requested an absentee ballot this year and returned it in late October.
Last Friday, she said she was stunned to receive a notice from her local elections board that a name she didn’t recognize was being challenged on her ballot. The challenge argued that because she is not a member of the military and lives overseas, she is not registered to vote in Pennsylvania and cannot vote. She may call or write the election office in Lycoming County, north-central Pennsylvania, or appear at a Nov. 8 hearing.
Larson is one of more than 4,000 people whose ballots were challenged in 14 counties in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, according to reports from the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and media outlets Votebeat and Lancaster Online. He is one of the overseas voters. .
“I was confused and tried to understand what the controversy was,” Larson said in an interview Sunday night. “Then I looked into it further, trying to understand it, and I got scared in a way, and then I got angry.
“There was an element of fear, like an implicit threat that I had done something wrong,” she said.
Pennsylvania law requires you to be a resident of the state to vote. However, the ACLU notes that because federal law allows U.S. citizens who live abroad and are unsure whether they will return to the United States to vote in federal elections in their last place of residence in the United States; It asserts that this challenge is invalid. The ACLU said these challenges appear to be a large-scale effort carried out through the mail merge process.
In 2020, 26,952 overseas voters in Pennsylvania successfully returned their counted ballots.
In a letter to all 67 counties in the state, ACLU attorneys wrote that “appropriate action by counties in the face of mass challenges to federally eligible ‘overseas voters’ is procedurally and substantively flawed. “We should immediately reject any objections that may arise.” “Counties should formally deny or deny the challenge as soon as possible to minimize delays and disruption to the investigative process,” ACLU attorneys wrote in a letter to all 67 counties in the state. Ta.
So far, officials in Bucks, Lancaster, Lehigh, York, Cumberland, Dauphin, Beaver, Center and Lycoming counties have all filed appeals, ACLU spokesperson Andy Huber said. It is said that he is receiving it.
Larsons’ challenge was filed by Karen DiSalvo, an attorney with a group called the Election Research Institute. Mr. DiSalvo recently lost a federal lawsuit challenging the eligibility of overseas voters, with a federal judge saying the case was based on “illusory fear of foreign wrongdoing.” The Elections Research Institute is led by Heather Honey, a prominent activist who has spread false claims about elections.
The justices rejected similar challenges to overseas voters in North Carolina and Michigan.
Please sign up for The Stakes — US Election Edition
The Guardian guides you through the turmoil of a presidential election with huge consequences.
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may include information about charities, online advertising, and content sponsored by external parties. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and are subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
After newsletter promotion
Pennsylvania allows voters to challenge other voters’ mail-in ballots. It’s unclear how Pennsylvania counties will respond to this challenge. Even if they are removed from office, they highlight how Donald Trump and his allies are already sowing doubt about the election. In September, the former president falsely suggested that votes from overseas voters were fraudulent.
According to recent polls, Pennsylvania is nearly evenly contested, with both sides fiercely contesting 19 electoral votes. The race is so close that both sides are fiercely fighting over rules that could affect whether certain mail-in ballots are counted.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week that voters who forget to write the date on their ballot will not have their vote counted. State and U.S. Supreme Courts recently ruled that voters who forget to put their ballot in the secrecy sleeve can cast a provisional ballot on Election Day.
In both cases, Republicans sought to block the votes from being counted, citing technical flaws.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
