Wednesday, November 05, 2003

By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A federal judge yesterday ruled that 937 hand-delivered absentee ballots will be set aside at the Allegheny County elections office until after Tuesday's election so anyone who wants to challenge any of them can do so.

U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti said the county elections board must produce a list of any voters whose hand-delivered ballots are being challenged no later than Thursday.

By Friday, she said, the board must also produce a list of any voters whose ballots are being challenged who also identified themselves as having a physical disability on their applications.

Conti's ruling extends a temporary restraining order she imposed on Friday requiring the elections board to separate all hand-delivered ballots from those that were mailed. She took the action after the county Republican Party challenged the elections board policy of allowing some voters to use third parties to deliver their ballots.

The elections board initially ruled that no absentee ballots would be accepted from third parties.

Last week the board modified those rules, allowing a voter to designate someone to deliver the ballot along with an affidavit that it hadn't been tampered with.

The Republican Party's complaint asked Conti to hold the hand-delivered ballots out of the election, arguing that the elections board violated state law by allowing third parties to deliver some ballots on behalf of voters who weren't physically disabled.

The Democratic Party and the county argued that the absentee ballot system is fair and that federal court has no jurisdiction over a state election.

The elections division had received 9,000 absentee ballots in all, 937 of which were hand-delivered. The rest were mailed. Of those hand-delivered, 287 came in before Common Pleas Judge James McGregor issued an order Oct. 22 requiring the person delivering the ballot to be the same as the one casting it.

A total of 97 arrived after the elections board voted Oct. 27 to allow ballots to be delivered by someone other than the voter, provided they filled out a form saying they had received authorization by the voter to do so.

Among those who have voted by absentee ballot for this election are U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan and Teresa Heinz, widow of U.S. Sen. John Heinz.

Buchanan and Heinz had ballots delivered by surrogates. Attorney Wendell Freeland, a member of the county elections board, hand-delivered a ballot on behalf of his wife.

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