Non-Verified Applicants: An Overwhelming Burden On Our Elections

In a report from Verity Vote, The Pennsylvania Voter-Not-Verified Vulnerability, from October 2022, reference is made to the Hope America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) that requires voter applicants present identification of either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a social security number in order to vote in a federal election. To comply with HAVA, the Pennsylvania Department of State (DoS) requires the applicant fill out the application requesting a mail-in ballot. The DoS compares the records of PennDOT or the Social Security Administration databases. If there is not a match, a mail-in ballot is sent with a non-verified (NV) designation. It is then the responsibility of county election officials to set aside the ballot until the voter provides adequate identification. Some counties forego the HAVA requirements which results in the acceptance of illegitimate ballots that are inadvertently counted illegally.

At a State Government hearing held on March 13, 2021, Deputy Secretary Jonathan Marks testified that if an applicant’s driver’s license or last four digits of an SSN cannot be matched in either database, the petitioner will be mailed a NV ballot. Marks stated that the ballot would not be counted until the applicant provides identification outlined in the Pennsylvania Election Code. The applicant has six days after the election to provide specified information for the vote to be counted. This puts the burden on county election workers to hold the ballots while waiting for the applicants’ information.  When Representative Clint Owlett questioned Marks about the efficiency of having the responsibility of county election officials flagging UV mail-in ballots versus Pennsylvania DoS requiring the missing applicant information ahead of the elections, Marks stated that it was a small percentage of applicants who received the NV ballots. Later in the hearing, when Owlett asked Marks if he knew how many NV ballots had been mailed during the 2020 election, Marks stated that he did not know.

Another Government Committee Hearing took place on 3/25/21.  Patricia Nace, a former Election Director from Snyder County and Election Consultant for Northumberland and Snyder Counties testified that she was unfamiliar with the unverified designation. Nace stated, “I’m not sure why they (applicants) would get an absentee ballot to begin with if there was something missing that they really should have continued to try and find the information on that voter before the absentee ballot would go out.” Other counties were familiar with the process of retaining the UV ballots. Ed Allison, a Lawrence County Election Director, testified that their county had a process in place to hold these ballots until election officials received the proper identification from applicants to verify. It is apparent that there is confusion among the counites on how to handle the UV ballots.

Eighteen months later, another Committee Hearing took place on September 14, 2022. Representative Ryan asked Deputy Secretary Marks why the Commonwealth had over 425,000 verifications sent through the Social Security Administration Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system from January to April of 2022. Deputy Secretary Marks responded that HAVV is used to verify information by new voters as well as absentee and mail ballots. He went on to testify, “If when you apply your PennDOT ID cannot be verified, the county can still issue the ballot, but the ballot doesn’t count unless the voter provides a valid form of ID – either a PennDOT ID or the last four of SSN that can be verified or one of the other forms of identification provided for in the statute.”

Less than two weeks after the Committee Hearing, a DoS Directive issued September 26, 2022, contradicted Marks’ testimony notifying the counties that identifications are verified before sending mail-in ballots to applicants. The directive states, “Before sending the ballot to the applicant the county board of elections confirms the qualifications of the applicant by verifying the proof of identification and comparing the information provided on the application with the information contained in the voter record. If the county is satisfied that the applicant is qualified, the application must be approved.”

The DoS has created inconsistencies among the counties. County officials have access to the results of PennDOT and SSN4 (HAVV) system but no major role in the matching process. If a correction or proof of ID is not received, some of the county election officials report that they count the ballots. Other officials state that they correct the invalid ID in the system and accept the ballot. No action is taken by the voters who should assume the responsibility of correcting their own information.

Some transactions that were reviewed from Verity Vote confirmed that from July 3 through October 15, 2022, Pennsylvania counties processed over 58,000 applications through the HAVV system that did not match the records of the Social Security Administration. Despite these inaccuracies, ballots were sent to the applicants. Verity Vote also compared data from five states that are similar in size to Pennsylvania. Unlike Pennsylvania, these states require mandatory ID for all elections. The states reviewed were Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida. The transactions reviewed were from the week of November 17, 2020, through the week of April 4, 2022. All five of these states averaged less than 12,000 non-matched ballots. Alarmingly, Pennsylvania had over 152,000 non-matches in the same period.

The Pennsylvania Department of State has put a tremendous burden on county election offices by having these officials correct inaccurate information by applicants in order to comply with the law. Many negative consequences can arise during the elections. For example, thousands of ballots being rejected, thousands of UV ballots being accepted illegally, long lines of voters waiting to correct information before the election deadline, and legal battles that cause delays in election results. This adversely affects our local and state elections that are determined, in many cases, by a narrow margin of votes.

The full report from Verity Vote can be viewed at: Pennsylvania Voter-Not-Verified Vulnerability (verityvote.us)

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