Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that spreadsheets of raw ballot data tied to each ballot—known as “cast vote records”—are public records in a dispute arising from the 2020 presidential election in Lycoming County. In a unanimous decision, the court ordered access to the data sought by an election researcher hired by the Trump administration, a case that followed a fight over whether providing the digital files would amount to revealing the contents of ballot boxes.
The litigation began when Heather Honey requested digital copies of the cast vote records from Lycoming County. Lycoming County’s elections director in Williamsport denied the request, saying the release would allow someone to review ballots as if inspecting a ballot box one vote at a time. The county argued that Pennsylvania election law allows broad access to election records but protects the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines as well as records involving assisted voters.
Pennsylvania election law provides wide access to county election records, with exceptions aimed at protecting vote secrecy. Lycoming County argued that its scanners and tabulators functioned as voting machines and that the cast vote records are the contents of ballot boxes, placing the data within the category of records the election code says should not be disclosed.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the cast vote records are not physical ballots stored in a ballot box. The justices wrote that the records are “spreadsheets of raw data pulled from the cast ballots,” and they concluded those spreadsheets are public records. The court added that interpreting the election code this way does not “destroy the secrecy of the vote any more than a tally of all votes from a specific election,” because the data do not function as the physical ballots themselves.
The court said the decision was also intended to help address public concerns about the election’s integrity. The justices described the ruling as a way to “satisfy the voting public that our elections are safe, secure and accurate” while still preserving the constitution’s requirement that votes remain secret.
After the case was brought, because Honey did not live and vote in Lycoming County, the litigation was continued by three Williamsport-area residents: a local businessman, a retired state trooper, and Republican state Rep. Joe Hamm. Their lawyer, Thomas Breth, said the data will allow people to review what happened in the closely contested 2020 election and dismissed the risk that the files would break ballot secrecy. Breth said, “In short, it’s not solely about the past,” adding that, in his view, “This significantly improves election integrity moving forward in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Lycoming elections chief Forrest Lehman said Tuesday that the records contain randomized data and that he did not believe they would reveal any secret ballot information. Lehman said he was ready to provide the records once requested, saying, “The court made its decision, and anybody who wants it can have at it.” He also said that safeguards required under the state’s election equipment standards protect voter identity, according to Breth’s response to the concern about disclosure linking data to individual voters.
The Supreme Court also limited the reach of its decision. The justices wrote that they were ruling only in the Lycoming County matter and said it was possible that other counties do not sufficiently randomize the data. The court said it was not deciding “Whether the Election Code requires disclosure of CVRs that clearly link the contents of a ballot with personally identifying data is not before us,” according to Justice Daniel McCaffery’s written opinion.
Sources: Associated Press.