PA Senate candidate Sands voted by mail twice in 2021 but now wants mail-in ballots outlawed

Despite calling for an end to Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail-in ballots in her campaign, Republican candidate Carla Sands used what she has called the “unconstitutional” option twice in 2021.

A review of Pennsylvania Department of State voter data show the Cumberland County resident voted by mail in the 2021 primary and election, making her the only GOP Senate candidate to use that voting method while also calling for their end on the campaign trail.

A registered voter in Pennsylvania since Jan. 26, 2020, Sands in recent debates has supported calls to end mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, citing a Commonwealth Court ruling from January that is currently stayed until the state Supreme Court rules on the matter.

Act 77 of 2019 allowed voters to cast a ballot by mail even if they were not absent from their home voting precincts during an election, but the Commonwealth Court ruled the option should have been a constitutional referendum and not the bipartisan supported legislative action that it was.

Sands tweeted on April 11 that mail-in ballots and drop boxes set up for voters to hand deliver their ballots directly to a county election office should end.

“We need fair and honest elections in 2022. No mail-in ballots. No drop boxes. No more changing the rules in the middle of the game,” Sands said.

A request for comment from Sands’ campaign was not immediately returned.

Sands has only voted once before in Pennsylvania, casting an absentee ballot in the 2016 Presidential Election, voter records show.

Sands made multiple claims that her absentee ballot was never counted, one post on her Twitter account announcing that her vote was not counted about four days after the Nov. 7 election.

Absentee ballots have been an option for voters in Pennsylvania since at least the Civil War and are used by voters who will not be in their home voting precincts during an election, that requirement being the main distinction between those ballots and no-excuse mail-in ballots.

There are separate applications voters have to fill out when requesting either ballot, and voter records have separate marks when a “vote method” is recorded in the registration data: “AB” for absentee and “MB” for mail-in ballots.

Voter records only include a completed vote method after election results are certified.

The historic 2020 election saw unprecedented turnout both at the polls and mail ballots that took most counties days to tally and court challenges, including those alleging unfounded claims of voter fraud, delayed some certifications longer in some counties.

The only other Republican candidate to cast a no-excuse mail ballot is Jeff Bartos, a real estate developer registered to vote in Montgomery County, who voted by mail twice in 2021 and in the 2020 election.

Unlike Sands and most other Republicans running in statewide races, Bartos hasn’t made removing mail ballots a focus of his campaign and was the only candidate during an April debate to say he would have certified the 2020 election results.

Candidate voting records

Compared to the four Democratic candidates running for Senate, the Republican field has a spotty record when it comes to participating in elections in general.

Every Democrat running to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey has cast a ballot in some form in every election since the 2016.

Jenkintown Borough council member Alexandria Khalil voted as an independent in the 2016 and 2017 elections, but otherwise every Democrat has voted under the same party during that time as well.

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Bartos and Sean Gale, Montgomery County, are the only two Republicans running for Senate who have consistently voted in every election since 2016.

Gale has voted in-person in every time, consistent with his vehement opposition to Act 77 as the focal point of his campaign website.

Dave McCormick, who grew up in Pennsylvania but spent the past 15 years living in Connecticut, has been a registered voter in the commonwealth since 2006 but hasn’t cast a ballot in the state in the past six years.

McCormick didn’t jump into the race until after the 2021 municipal election last November.

The only GOP candidate to cast fewer ballots than McCormick is George Bochetto, a registered voter in Pennsylvania since 2004 and current Philadelphia resident.

Bochetto, who has said he would champion the legal challenge to Act 77 to the U.S. Supreme Court if elected, has only cast one in-person ballot over the past six years, during the 2020 election.

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Montgomery County resident and political commentator Kathy Barnette registered to vote in Pennsylvania in 2015 but doesn’t appear to have voted in the state until 2018.

After casting an in-person ballot that year, Barnette didn’t vote again until 2020 when she was running against Congresswoman Madeleine Dean in Pennsylvania’s 4th Congressional District.

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Barnette lost that race in 2020 and has since blamed that loss on mail-in ballots, “irregularities” in the election and has cited some of the same unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud as Trump.

The inconsistent voter history among the GOP Senate candidates doesn’t seem to follow the Republicans running to replace Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf later this year.

All of the GOP Candidates appear to have voted consistently since 2016, and almost entirely in-person but never by mail-in ballot.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro has also voted in every election over the past six years, only voting by mail in 2020.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Sands used mail-in ballots in 2021, she now wants them gone in PA