In a victory for the GOP, a Pennsylvania judge has upheld a decision from the Butler County Board of Elections that bars voters “curing” their defective mail-in ballots that lack inner secrecy envelopes, aka “naked ballots.”

Pennsylvania requires votes by mail to have ballots inside an inner secrecy envelope. “Prior to Election Day, the plaintiffs submitted mail-in ballots without an inner secrecy envelope and the board of elections rejected them. In an effort to cure their ballots, both voters submitted provisional ballots on Election Day. However, the board decided not to count the voters’ provisional ballots,” Democracy Docket explained.

“The actions of the Board in adopting a narrow cure policy that applies in such a way as to uphold voting deadlines and ensure secrecy in voting is maintained, but that allows electors the greatest possible chance of having their vote counted, does not violate either the Election Code or the Free and Equal clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” Judge S. Michael Yeager wrote, adding, “It is the voter’s burden to ensure they have completed the steps necessary for their mail-in ballot to be included in the tabulation.”

In a prior petition to Judge Yeager, the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP wrote, “There can be no dispute that the unequivocal law of Pennsylvania is that secrecy envelopes are required, and any mail-in ballot received without a secrecy envelope cannot be counted. Knowing this, the Department of State has taken it upon itself to unilaterally reach out to voters whose mail-in ballots have been rejected due to a perceived lack of a secrecy envelope and encourage them to cure such ballots by appearing in person and voting provisionally.”

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“To be clear, there is no right under Pennsylvania law to cure mail-in ballots which lack a secrecy envelope and Petitioners’ attempt to create such a right where none exists should be rejected,” they stated. “The Republican Committees have a clear and obvious interest in the issues presented in this suit-and in ensuring that this issue is properly and fairly litigated to ensure that Pennsylvania law regarding a county board of elections’ right to govern how it will conduct elections is followed. … The Republican Committees also have a right to intervene in this suit for another, independent reason: they seek to uphold the Election Code under which they, their voters, their member~, and their candidates exercise their constitutional rights to vote and to participate in elections in Pennsylvania.”