Two county residents claim in a suit filed Monday, April 29, the Butler County Board of Elections rejected the mail-in ballots they submitted for the April 23 primary and then refused to count the provisional ballots they cast at the polls on election day.

The suit was filed on behalf of Faith Genser, of Zelienople, and Frank Matis, of Center Township, and asks county Common Pleas Court to order the board to count their provisional ballots.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, attorneys from the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and attorneys from another Philadelphia law office filed the suit.

Mail-in voters are supposed to place their marked ballot in the secrecy envelope and then place that envelope in an outer envelope before mailing it.

The board rejected the mail-in ballots because they lacked the inner secrecy envelopes and wouldn’t count the plaintiff’s provisional ballots, according to the suit.

The board has a policy stating a mail-in ballot with a disqualifying mistake on the envelope will be set aside, and the voter can either go to the county Bureau of Elections and sign an attestation that will be recorded with the ballot, or the voter can cast a provisional ballot at the polling place on election day, according to the suit.

The suit states Genser and Matis followed the rules of the county and the Pennsylvania Department of State for completing provisional ballots before casting their ballots.

They appealed the board’s decision to not count their provisional ballots, and the board orally announced its decision to not count the ballots when it adjudicated the provisional ballots on Friday, according to the suit.

The suit claims the board based its decision on a misinterpretation of a state Supreme Court decision in a 2020 suit in which the Pennsylvania Democratic Party sued then Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathryn Boockvar, arguing the court neither discussed nor decided if voters can cure mail-in ballots missing secrecy envelopes by correcting mail-in ballots before election day or by casting provisional ballots.

The suit says Act 77 of 2019 allowed for widespread mail-in voting beginning in 2020 when it was implemented, but mistakes on mail-in ballots are common. More than 16,000 mail-in ballots were not counted because they lacked a secrecy envelope or signature or date on the outer envelope, according to the suit.

In addition, the suit argues the board allows voters to correct mail-in ballots with mistakes related to the signature and date on the outer envelope, but not those missing secrecy envelopes.

“Every county in this commonwealth should provide people a chance to fix their mistakes and cast a ballot that can be counted,” Mike Lee, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in an email announcing the suit. “Every eligible voter who wants to participate in an election should have that opportunity.”

County officials could not be reached Monday for comment.