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81-year-old woman puts a human face on the undated ballot problem

Mail-in ballots have proved contentious since Pennsylvania widely expanded their use in a bipartisan 2019 election reform. Federal and state judges have ruled at various times that undated ballots should be counted, or should not be counted, while still trying to determine if the date requirement violates federal civil rights law.

On Tuesday, a court helped an 81-year-old homebound voter in Northampton County, Pruella Shook of Nazareth, ensure her undated ballot could be fixed and counted.

The case involved Shook, who late in life has taken to voting regularly, and a social media plea for help by a grassroots ballot group that led to a court order eventually giving the woman a new ballot.

Shook, who said she supported Democratic candidates, was initially notified by the county that she forgot to write the date on the outer envelope of her mail ballot.

As allowed under state law, and with help from the American Civil Liberties Union and the group Red Wine and Blue, both of which were helping “cure” ballots that were rejected, Shook was able to pick up an absentee ballot as a replacement, via a “designated agent.”

But that wasn’t before county election officials denied Shook’s request to amend the ballot. When they notified Shook about her undated ballot, they gave her two options to fix it: go to the courthouse in Easton to amend the ballot, or go to her polling place with a provisional ballot.

A Red Wine and Blue member, Mary Grube of Plainfield Township, said the disabled Shook could not leave her house.

“It was a double issue,” said Grube, a part-time, paid regional organizer with the group. “Her voting rights were being challenged, and it could’ve been a disability [discrimination] case.”

Grube said while she was standing in the election division office waiting to submit Shook’s forms enabling Grube to act as her agent, Grube watched “multiple people walk in and cure their ballots by just dating them and walking out.”

The Northampton County elections office said 162 ballots were “cured” by voters who came in to supply a missing date or signature.

Richard Santee, the county elections division solicitor, said the county didn’t object to Shook’s request, but she needed to get a court order, due to a “gap” in the state election code.

“It’s something the law just doesn’t permit,” he said.

Easton attorney Gary Asteak, who became involved at the behest of the ACLU, said the county believed no mechanism existed for a designated agent to fix a ballot, including returning with a provisional ballot filled out by a homebound person.

Santee said later the election code lets county courts hold hearings on Election Day to ensure voters participate in “free, fair and accurate elections.” That enabled Shook, with the help of those representing her case, to have a hearing in motions court.

So Asteak appeared before Northampton County Court Judge Jennifer R. Sletvold, who granted the order allowing Grube, as a designated agent, to obtain the absentee ballot in Shook’s behalf. Shook then filled out the absentee ballot, signed and dated it.

Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s campaign, through an attorney, objected to the fix over an unspecified security issue, according to Asteak, who represented Shook in court. Grube said the attorney accompanied her to meet Shook. Neither the attorney representing the Oz campaign, Alicia Emili, nor a campaign spokesperson could be reached for comment.

Democratic candidate John Fetterman’s campaign did not attend the hearing, Grube said.

Shook, who admitted not being a lifelong voter — she did not start voting until the 2008 presidential election — said she made a mistake by failing to date the outside envelope that came with the ballot.

“However,” she said, “it’s also the election board’s mistake for not allowing me to do it more easily without going through this nonsense. There’s got to be another 100,000 people like me who can’t get to a poll or made a mistake on the ballot.”

Red Wine and Blue, a political action committee formed in 2019 in Ohio, last year expanded its focus to states with key U.S. Senate races, like the Oz-Fetterman race in Pennsylvania.

Groups like Red Wine and Blue check on people whose ballots are rejected, Asteak said. After someone from another group initially learned of Shook’s issue, another Red Wine and Blue organizer took to social media seeking help for the woman. It led to contacting Grube and the ACLU, which in turn contacted Asteak.

The issue of undated ballots has gone back in forth in state and federal courts in recent years. Most recently, the state Supreme Court ruled last week that the counties should not count ballots without dates or incorrect dates. But another lawsuit filed Friday night seeks to have those counted, arguing the requirement to include dates violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But that back and forth wasn’t much help to Shook, who said she learned a lesson from all this.

“Until this happened, I truly did not realize how very important it is.”

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