A statewide coalition of nonpartisan community organizations sued Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt and election officials in Philadelphia and Allegheny County state court, demanding an end to the disqualification of mail-in ballots for inconsequential date errors. This practice violates the fundamental right to vote in free and equal elections guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

This case in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asks whether the Right to Know Law (“RTKL”), 65 P.S. §§ 67.101 - 67.3104, requires the disclosure of school board members’ social media posts on their private Facebook accounts relating to the propriety of a display of certain books in the school library. This case is among one of the first state supreme court cases addressing whether Facebook posts constitute records. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania attorney Brian Cagle, filed a brief arguing that RTKL’s text and structure require the conclusion that posts are “records,” and thus are subject to disclosure.

In November 2022, thousands of Pennsylvania voters were denied the right to vote based on a meaningless paperwork error. They filled out their mail ballots, signed the form on the outer return envelope, and returned their ballots on time. Yet their ballots were not counted, because they either forgot to write the date on their return envelope, or they accidentally wrote the wrong date. The Civil Rights Act prohibits states from disenfranchising voters based on immaterial paperwork error, and we're fighting to make sure that every vote counts