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A lawsuit alleging illegal ballot manipulation filed in Commonwealth Court includes, among its plaintiffs, a newly elected Republican state lawmaker from Lycoming County.
Joe Hamm, who defeated Democrat Amanda Waldman for the vacant 84th state House seat, said he became involved in the suit due to concerns of rule changes right before the election.
"I of course put out my displeasure about it because it created chaos and confusion," he said.
A hearing was set for Wednesday.
Several large counties in Pennsylvania have been allegedly removing flawed mail-in ballots that would otherwise be disqualified and providing them to campaign workers and volunteers so that voters may be contacted to correct ballots.
Those filing the suit claim this is an apparent violation of state law. They say once ballots are received, they are to be set aside for election review until the election is complete.
However, on Monday evening, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar authorized all Pennsylvania counties to be able to return erroneous ballots.
Hamm and others allege such action violates Section 3146.8 of the Pennsylvania Election Code.
They claim it is impractical as other counties, especially smaller and rural ones, did not have sufficient notice to make efforts to correct flawed ballots.
There are potentially 10,000 or more flawed ballots which have been corrected and returned.
Hamm said, to his knowledge, no "improprieties" occurred in Lycoming County.
Phil Kline, director of The Amistad Project, which is supporting the litigation said, "These series of disturbing actions disenfranchise all Pennsylvanians who voted properly and especially those in counties which followed the rules and did not adopt this illegal practice. All voters and their votes should be treated fairly and equally."
Hamm said it was important to respond to the situation, especially with what is at stake in a big presidential election.
He said he did not plan to attend the hearing.