Five Pennsylvania Republican congressmen have sued to segregate military absentee ballots claiming the commonwealth’s rules violate federal law. (Getty Images)
Six Republican Pennsylvania congressmen say in a lawsuit that Pennsylvania violates federal election law by failing to verify the identities of service members who apply for overseas absentee ballots.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg claims the Pennsylvania Department of State guidelines that say military voters and their spouses are exempt from voter identification and eligibility verification requirements violate the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
U.S. Reps Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, Lloyd Smucker, Mike Kelly, and Scott Perry filed the suit initially on Sept. 30 and filed an amended complaint on Monday. All of them are seeking reelection in 2024.
The suit seeks an injunction requiring election officials to verify the identities of people applying for overseas ballots and any ballots received before Nov. 5 to be segregated and not counted until the senders’ identities have been verified.
The Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections in the commonwealth, said in a statement that the suit appears to be a continuation of litigation first filed in 2020 and intended to sow confusion and throw out the votes of millions of Pennsylvania residents in that year’s presidential election.
“Thousands of Pennsylvanians are currently serving our country abroad as members of the military, putting their lives on the line to defend our freedoms. But despite the sacrifices they make to protect us, some elected leaders are now making bad-faith arguments to prevent these votes from being counted,” DOS spokesperson Matt Heckel said.
Heckel noted the suit was filed two weeks after Pennsylvania counties started mailing ballots to military and overseas voters and it baselessly challenges Pennsylvania law, which clearly lays out procedures for processing ballot applications by overseas voters.
“Ballots cast by ineligible voters occur at extremely low rates and are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities when they occur. Individuals registering to vote must affirm that the information they submit is accurate, with any false statement subjecting them to a potential felony conviction, prison sentence and substantial fine,” Heckel said.
In a news release after The Washington Post first reported the suit Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee targeted Perry, who faces a particularly competitive re-election challenge from former television journalist Janelle Stelson in the 10th District, calling it a “disgraceful” attempt to disenfranchise service members.
The DCCC noted that Perry has voted against support for homeless, pregnant, and sick veterans who were exposed to toxic substances including Agent Orange and burn pits.
“With a deeply unpopular record, Scott Perry knows that the only way he can cling onto power is by disenfranchising his constituents and stripping away their right to vote, even for our military members serving overseas. Pennsylvania deserves so much better than Perry’s transparently self-serving desperation,” DCCC spokesperson Aiden Johnson said.
A spokesperson for Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Republicans have sent mixed messages about voting by mail, with GOP attorneys across the country mounting lawsuits in Pennsylvania to throw out mail ballots over paperwork errors and elsewhere to make it harder for voters to obtain a mail-in ballot and have it counted.
Perry himself has encouraged Republican voters to embrace voting by mail, noting at a conservative conference in Harrisburg in April that it’s popular among Democrats and unlikely to go away.
Perry makes plea for Republicans to vote by mail at conservative conference
The lawsuit names Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and Deputy Secretary for Elections Johnathan Marks as defendants. It claims Schmidt and Marks “through directives and guidance to county election officials” entirely exempt uniformed and overseas voters from identity and eligibility verification required by HAVA and Pennsylvania law.
The suit claims that Iranian nationals could “easily create and submit falsified [overseas ballot applications] in Pennsylvania’s November 5, 2024, federal elections.” It cites a 2021 U.S. Department of Justice indictment of two Iranians who sought to intimidate and influence voters in the 2020 election.
A hearing on the congressmen’s motion for an injunction is scheduled for Oct. 18 in Harrisburg.