The Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans (PARA) filed a lawsuit against the Lancaster County Board of Elections to challenge the rejection of mail-in and absentee ballots that are missing the last two digits of the year from the handwritten date on the outer return envelope.

The group is represented by Fair Elections Center and LeVan Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC.

Under Pennsylvania law, in order for their ballots to count, voters must record the date they sign their declaration. In late 2023, the Pennsylvania Department of State (DOS) redesigned the outer envelope for mail-in and absentee ballots so that the first two digits of the year (“20”) are preprinted in the handwritten date field.

Many Republicans, including Lancaster County’s Republican Commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, have argued the law’s language clearly makes the signature and date on voter declarations a requirement for a vote to be counted.

“You may think that’s dumb, but it’s in the law,” Parsons said at an elections board meeting in 2022.

Parsons and D’Agostino, as well as Democratic Commissioner Alice Yoder, did not respond to a request for comment.

In the April primary elections, certain counties including Lancaster County chose to ignore guidance from DOS urging them to count ballots with envelopes that included the day and month but not the last two digits of the year and adopted a policy to reject such ballots. PARA’s lawsuit argues that counties may not lawfully reject these ballots under Pennsylvania statutes and the Pennsylvania Constitution, given that the current year is displayed on the ballots themselves and the year in which they are issued and cast is self-evident.

“The right to vote and choose our leaders is our most basic freedom, and it should never be infringed upon. Counties should not be permitted to throw out a ballot just because the voter neglected to fill in the last two digits of the year on the outside of the ballot envelope,” said Mike Crossey, President of PARA. “The Pennsylvania Alliance is determined to fight to make sure that no county is allowed to disenfranchise voters over this minor technicality.”

“Rejecting mail ballots for the simple omission of the digits ‘24’ from the year reads Pennsylvania law into absurdity. The ballots that Lancaster and other counties are rejecting are neither from the past nor the future; indisputably, they have been issued, cast, and returned in 2024,” said Jon Sherman, Litigation Director at Fair Elections Center. “Pennsylvania election laws must be interpreted in voters’ favor and not as a series of tricks and traps.”

Jon Cochran of LeVan Stapleton Segal Cochran added, “Every vote matters, and ballots should not be rejected on a meaningless technicality like this one.”

LNP | LancasterOnline analyzed 338 ballots from the 2022 general midterm election and found older adults were more likely to get their ballots rejected for clerical mistakes. The analysis found that 60 percent of the voters who failed to properly sign and date their mail-in ballots were 65 or older. The same group of voters made up just 27% of all registered voters in the county.

The full complaint filed in the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas can be read here.