Civil Rights

WILLIAMSPORT — The Pennsylvania Department of State has cited 11 errors it claims a Lycoming County judge made in ruling that cast vote records are public, according to PennLive.com.

The state agency filed the list Monday as part of its appeal to Judge Eric R. Linhardt’s December ruling regarding the records from the 2020 general election.

The Department of State intervened on behalf of the county Office of Voter Services in the lawsuit brought by Heather Honey of Lebanon County.

Linhardt determined that because Honey is not a Lycoming County resident, she was not entitled to the records, John Beauge of PennLive reported. However, his ruling gave access to the records to three county residents — state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township; Donald C. Peters, chairman of the Lycoming County Republican Committee and Jeffrey J. Stroehmann, a former chairman of the Lycoming County Republican Committee.

Linhardt’s ruling said that the Legislature intended the “contents” of ballot boxes or voting machines to refer to deposited ballots and the mechanical inner working of the machines not the information contained from them and that the Legislature intended to provide broad public access to the documents and records of county boards of election, according to PennLive.com. Additionally, in Lycoming County votes listed in the records are not in the order they were cast. Linhardt’s ruling also said the release of the records does not violate the Pennsylvania Constitution’s guarantee of secrecy of voting as argued by the Department of State.

Cast vote records are a collection of spreadsheets containing data for each ballot. The records do not contain voter identification information, county Elections Director Forrest Lehman explained to PennLive.com.

The Department of State in its court filing argues the judge was wrong to determine the records are not excepted from public access under the Election Code and that the term “contents of ballot boxes” is ambiguous. Other points the state agency says are errors include the claim that records from an electronic voting system are not the “contents of ballot boxes” and that their release does not violate a voter’s constitutional right to a secret ballot.