As we approach the 2024 general election, the Law Center has been very busy protecting voting rights across Pennsylvania. We recently secured two important victories in Commonwealth Court, both now on appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court:

• In Washington County, the board of elections adopted a policy not to notify voters of disqualifying errors on mail ballots, preventing them from having the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot to have their vote counted. Alongside the ACLU of Pennsylvania and pro bono lawyers at Dechert, we represent seven voters, the Center for Coalfield Justice, and the Washington Branch NAACP in a challenge to this policy, which led to the disqualification of 259 ballots in the 2024 primary election, without the voters’ knowledge. Both the Washington County Court of Common Pleas and a three-judge panel of Commonwealth Court ruled in our favor. As Claudia De Palma, senior attorney at the Law Center, explained: “Voters in Washington County can be assured that, if they make a mistake with their mail ballot, they’ll be notified and have a chance to rescue their vote. That’s a win for voters.”

• In Butler County, the board of elections refused to count provisional ballots of voters who forgot to include the secrecy envelope with their mail ballots in the 2024 primary election. Alongside the ACLU of Pennsylvania and pro bono lawyers at Dechert, we represent two voters, Faith Genser and Frank Matis, who sued to have their votes counted. After the Butler County Court of Common Pleas ruled against us, a three-judge panel of Commonwealth Court reversed that decision and ruled that Butler County had no legal basis to disqualify the provisional ballots. As explained by Ben Geffen, senior attorney at the Law Center, the “decision ensures that if you make a paperwork mistake that will keep your mail-in ballot from counting, you can fix the problem by going to your polling place on Election Day and filling out a provisional ballot. This is an important safety net that protects the right to vote for Pennsylvania citizens.”

In another case we brought together with the ACLU of Pennsylvania and pro bono lawyers at Arnold & Porter, a panel of Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of our clients, Black Political Empowerment Project and other nonpartisan community organizations, in a case seeking to end the disqualification of mail-in ballots with trivial errors on the external envelopes. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated this ruling on procedural grounds. We then brought a new lawsuit in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking the court to stop county election boards from disqualifying mail ballots submitted by voters who did not include a “correct” handwritten date on the return envelope. As the Law Center’s legal director, Mimi McKenzie, said: “The counties know that these ballots are from eligible voters. They know that they received the ballots by the submission deadline because they’re holding them in their hands. This requirement is meaningless for administering the election, but it’s damaging because it disqualifies otherwise eligible voters for a meaningless paperwork mistake.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently declined to hear this new lawsuit, and at the same time declined to hear a separate lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee seeking to end mail ballot “notice and cure” procedures across the state. But one additional lawsuit challenging rejection of ballots based on the meaningless handwritten date requirement remains pending: alongside the ACLU of Pennsylvania and pro bono lawyers at Arnold & Porter, we represent two Philadelphia voters whose ballots were rejected in the September 17, 2024 special election; the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ruled in our favor and an appeal is now pending before Commonwealth Court.

Votes only matter if they are counted. That’s why we do what we do. We will continue to work to protect the right to vote for all Pennsylvanians this November and beyond. For more details on our voting rights efforts, visit our Protecting Our Right to Vote page on our website.

Olivia Mania joined the Law Center in 2024 as a Penn Carey Law Catalyst Fellow. She supports all of the Law Center's practice areas, focusing on voting rights litigation. 



Before joining the Law Center, Olivia gained public interest law experience through internships with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Lambda Legal, and Amara Legal Center. During law school, she was Vice President of Penn Carey Law Lambda, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Law & Social Change, and Chair of the Transgender Empowerment & Advocacy Pro Bono Project. 

Olivia earned her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 2024 and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.A. in Political Science in 2021.