County Democrats may file ballot lawsuit on Friday
By Bernard Harris
Lancaster New Era

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Lancaster County Democrats were reviewing a federal court decision today before going forward with plans to file a lawsuit against the county’s election board.

The Democrats had planned to file a legal challenge this morning over the election board’s refusal to send new absentee ballots to voters who received ballots last week with Ralph Nader’s name on them.

On Wednesday, Attorney Sharon Greelish Cody told the county commissioners — acting as the election board — that failing to send corrected ballots placed an undue burden on the 4,500 voters who received them.

Yet Bruce Beardsley, county Democratic chairman, said this morning that Greelish Cody was reviewing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane before filing the Democrats’ case in county court.

Kane on Wednesday ruled that Pennsylvania election officials do not have to mail new absentee ballots to the approximately 27,000 military personnel and Pennsylvania residents now overseas. Ballots mailed by the state’s 67 counties since August included Nader’s name.

Nader, an independent presidential candidate, has been on then off the Pennsylvania ballot for months. The state Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling to remove his name from the ballot.

Beardsley said the state court may look to Judge Kane’s ruling for guidance on the local absentee ballot issue. Greelish Cody may file the county Democrats’ challenge on Friday.

The Democrats are objecting to the county election board’s failure to act on Wednesday.

Commissioner Molly Henderson, a Democrat, made a motion to mail corrected ballots to voters who received absentee ballots with Nader’s name. It died without a second from Republicans Pete Shaub and Dick Shellenberger.

Henderson then called for a letter to be sent to those voters to tell them Nader was off the ballot. That motion also failed.

Those actions, which had been supported by the county Democrats, prompted Greelish Cody to announce that a lawsuit would soon be filed.

Henderson’s motion came a week after she had vocally objected to Shaub’s and Shellenberger’s votes to mail the ballots. She had advised them to wait because a ruling on Nader was expected that day. About a half-hour after the ballots went into the mail, the ruling striking Nader’s name was received.

Shaub and Shellenberger said they wanted to get the ballots to voters quickly so they could be returned by the Oct. 29 deadline.

Beardsley, the county Democratic chairman, charged again that Shaub’s and Shellenberger’s votes were politically motivated and added that the county’s 82,000 Democrats are “fed up.”

“The Republicans have consistently over the years been abusing their power in a partisan manner and we’re not going to roll over and let them continue to do it,” said Beardsley.

Democrats are concerned that votes for Nader will siphon off votes for their presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

Polls show that Kerry and Republican President George W. Bush are locked in a tight race for Pennsylvania and the state’s 21 electoral votes.

Beardsley said the legal action is also a shot across the bow. It will be the Republican-controlled election board which will rule on each provisional ballot cast during the heated presidential election. Beardsley wants to show Shaub and Shellenberger that Democrats will be watching.

Mary Stehman, chief clerk of the election board and chief registrar, told the commissioners Wednesday that there is no legal requirement that the county remail ballots or send a letter explaining the mistake.

She said it would take six days for new ballots to be printed and sent to voters.

That would leave voters only three days to return the ballots before the Oct. 29 deadline, Shaub calculated. He said the initial mailing had already been delayed by a week.

Henderson argued that further delay and the cost of reprinting the ballots would be outweighed by the benefit of an accurate ballot and restoring voter confidence in the process.

Kane’s ruling, in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, rejected a plea from U.S. Justice Department attorneys who argued that overseas voters would be disenfranchised by casting their votes on ballots that include Nader.

Kane said any votes for Nader would still be counted as write-in votes.

The task of preparing, distributing and counting amended ballots that exclude Nader could be more harmful to the election system run by the state’s 67 counties, the judge said. Those counties are facing a flood of new registrations and other requirements this year, Kane noted.