WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has rejected a Republican appeal and left in place a Pennsylvania court decision allowing people to cast provisional ballots when their mail-in votes are rejected for not following technical procedures in state law.

The court released the decision Friday, after an “apparent software malfunction” sent out early notifications about orders that had been slated to be released Monday. A technological error also resulted in an opinion being posted early last year.

The justices acted in an appeal filed by the Republican National Committee, the state GOP and the Republican-majority election board in Butler County. Republican Commissioners Leslie Osche and Kim Geyer voted to join the RNC appeal while Democratic Commissioner Kevin Boozel voted against it at their Wednesday, Jan. 15, meeting.

Pennsylvania’s top court ruled last year the county must count provisional ballots that were cast by two voters after they learned their mail-in ballots were voided because they arrived without mandatory secrecy envelopes.

Pennsylvania Democrats had urged the court to stay out of the case.

According to previous Butler Eagle reporting, the three-member election computation board — Karen Barbati, Jeff Pakutz and Carol Knox — and the county Bureau of Elections determined following the April primary that two Democratic and one Republican mail-in ballots would not be counted.

After weighing the submitted ballots, they determined the secrecy envelopes that ensure ballot anonymity were missing. The ballot is meant to be sealed inside the secrecy envelope, which then is sealed inside the provided return envelope.

Entering the invalid mail-in ballots into the election system triggered an email to the voters suggesting they cast a provisional ballot on election day, Osche said.

The voters submitted their provisional ballots, but when they weren’t counted, the ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of the two Democrats, Genser and Matis.

The suit found its way to the state Supreme Court following a series of appeals.

The state Supreme Court affirmed an earlier Commonwealth Court 4-3 vote Sept. 5 that provisional ballots will be accepted for voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected because they lacked the secrecy envelope.

Justice Christine Donohue wrote that the Butler County board of elections correctly rejected the mail-in ballots but should have counted their provisional ballots which the computation board rejected.

The ruling reversed a Butler County Court of Common Pleas ruling in favor of the computation board.

Returned mail-in ballots must be sealed inside the yellow envelope shipped with it labeled “official election ballot” then sealed in the outer return envelope to be counted, according to Pennsylvania’s instruction for voting via mail and absentee ballots.

Voters may be issued a provisional ballot if they submitted a mail-in ballot that was rejected by the county board of elections, regardless if they submit their mail-in ballot and secrecy envelope, according to the state’s reasons for issuing preliminary ballots.