In a landmark determination, the Commonwealth Court docket of Pennsylvania has dominated that digital photos of accomplished absentee and mail-in ballots are to be thought-about public information.
This pivotal ruling stems from a case involving appellant Michelle Previte, who sought to acquire digital copies of those ballots from the 2020 Common Election by way of Pennsylvania’s Proper-to-Know Legislation (RTKL).
The case started when Previte submitted RTKL requests to the Erie County Board of Elections, in search of entry to digital photos of all mail-in and absentee ballots, in addition to photos of the outer envelopes and polling place ballots from the November 2020 election.
The Board denied her request, arguing that these paperwork weren’t public information beneath Part 308 of the Pennsylvania Election Code. Previte then appealed to the Workplace of Open Data (OOR), which sided together with her for the mail-in and absentee ballots however upheld the denial for polling place ballots.
The Erie County Board of Elections took the matter to the Court docket of Frequent Pleas, which dominated in favor of the Board.
Nonetheless, this determination was overturned by the Commonwealth Court docket on Wednesday, which discovered that the digital photos of absentee and mail-in ballots are certainly public information.
The courtroom decided that these photos fall beneath the purview of the Proper-to-Know Legislation (RTKL), which mandates public entry to authorities information except explicitly exempted by regulation.
Choose Ellen Ceisler, who authored the bulk opinion, mentioned that accomplished absentee and mail-in ballots, as soon as faraway from poll containers or voting machines, are to be handled as public information and might be obtained by an RTKL request so long as they observe the Election Code’s guidelines of disclosure and don’t embody any info that identifies (or is fairly more likely to facilitate the identification of) the people who solid these ballots.
Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Natalie Clawson, praised this ruling, stating, “Enormous win for election integrity in Pennsylvania! Utah must observe Pennsylvania’s instance and declare that the digital photos of mail-in ballots are public file.”
She added, “Two issues might be true: the Elections photos should be auditable to revive belief AND the person’s vote is should be stored secret. Utah.. let’s observe Pennsylvania’s lead. There may be proof that some precincts in Salt Lake Co had 117% voter turnout in 2020 for withheld voters. That is clearly an issue. The general public and a 3rd celebration wants to have the ability to audit our elections.”
Investigative reporter Behizy wrote on X, “What I like about this ruling is that it looks like the Appellate judges actually took their time to know the problem at hand. Part 308 of Pennsylvania’s election code says every little thing is public file “besides the contents of poll containers and voting machines and information of assisted voters,”
“The decrease courtroom used some twisted logic to say the poll photos have been one way or the other “contents of voting machines and, thus, have been shielded from RTKL requests.” Sure, photos of the ballots are taken by the machine however they’re not a part of the machine. The photographs you are taking together with your telephone aren’t a part of your telephone, that’s nonsensical to suppose however these are the lengths some judges and election officers are prepared to go to hide the reality.”
Through Behizy:
What I like about this ruling is that it looks like the Appellate judges actually took their time to know the problem at hand
Part 308 of Pennsylvania’s election code says every little thing is public file “besides the contents of poll containers and voting machines and information of… pic.twitter.com/w6P4vgyjSK
— George (@BehizyTweets) August 1, 2024
Learn the opinion beneath: