Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Cast Vote Records Not Exempt from Public Disclosure

HARRISBURG (LN) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Monday that cast vote records — the line-by-line tabulator reports showing how each ballot was counted — are not exempt from public disclosure under the state Election Code, ruling in favor of a citizen requester who had litigated against Lycoming County election officials through three courts over more than three years.

The case turned on a single phrase in Section 308 of the Election Code, a provision drafted in 1937 that shields the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines from public release. Lycoming County Offices of Voter Services argued that cast vote records, known as CVRs, fell within that exemption.

The majority, authored by Justice McCaffery, rejected that reading. The majority described CVRs as akin to spreadsheet reports generated after electors have cast their votes. Justice David Wecht, writing separately to concur, called the question straightforward: things not contained in ballot boxes and voting machines cannot be their contents, and CVRs are not so contained.

The Commonwealth Court had reached the opposite conclusion in March 2024, declaring CVRs digitally equivalent to such contents — a move Wecht described as an analytical straddle. That court, he wrote, conceded that Section 308 of the Election Code is unambiguous while at the same time insisting that this lack of ambiguity required CVRs to be deemed contents of ballot boxes and voting machines within the meaning of that section.

Wecht was equally pointed about the logical problem with invoking policy consequences and administrative interpretations to resolve a statute the lower court had already called clear. "Either the statute is clear or it is not. It can't be both," he wrote.

The county and its amici had urged the court to consider the consequences of ordering disclosure, an argument Wecht acknowledged without accepting. "Perhaps they all are correct as to the policy infirmities of this result," he wrote, but directed any remedy to the legislature rather than the courts.

Wecht closed by noting that the 1937 statutory language has not changed since its enactment, and that citizens should be entitled to expect their legislators to address and account for advances in voting technologies more frequently than on a centennial basis.