Drenth v. Boockvar

Pennsylvania’s election laws provided that eligible voters could vote through absentee or mail-in ballots. Both alternatives required voters to complete and send in paper ballots. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began in Pennsylvania. At the time, no treatments were available, and the disease posed significant health risks. Joseph Drenth (plaintiff) and the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania (blind voters) (plaintiffs) sued the state government (state) (defendant), arguing that the mail-in and absentee ballot policies violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act. The blind voters claimed that the policies deprived blind citizens of their rights to vote privately and independently because in-person voting posed serious health risks and the alternatives required blind individuals to seek third-party assistance in marking ballots. The blind voters sought a preliminary injunction to implement an accessible ballot for the 2020 election cycle, which began 12 days after the lawsuit’s filing. The blind voters wanted the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) ballot, but the state claimed that this choice was not feasible due to the time frame. The state claimed that it could implement the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) or the Accessible Write-In Ballot (AWIB), but the blind voters argued that these alternatives did not provide full accessibility. Expert testimony established that all three ballot options could be converted into accessible, electronically fillable documents. The UOCAVA ballot required significantly longer to convert than did the FWAB or AWIB, and testimony conflicted as to whether the ballots could be converted in time. However, the UOCAVA ballot was the most accessible option. The FWAB had inconsistent formatting and required voters to transfer information between documents, a difficult task for blind individuals to complete without error or confusion. The AWIB was deemed more accessible than the FWAB due to better formatting but still required information transfer between documents. The district court addressed the form and appropriateness of a preliminary injunction.