PENNSYLVANIA – Suburban Philadelphia counties are being asked to reject mail-in ballot requests from hundreds of voters in what the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania called illegal, mass-produced challenges.

The challenges question the voter’s residency based on a supposed match to a U.S. Postal Service change of address database.

Diane Houser, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who filed more than 200 challenges in Chester County, said the challenges were nonpartisan and came from a grassroots network targeting voting requests from people who left the ‘State.

However, the ACLU said such challenges are illegal because voters can only be asked about their qualifications to register to vote. Friday is the deadline for such challenges, which the ACLU says must be based on specific evidence demonstrating that a certain potential voter is ineligible to vote.

These challenges rely on the erroneous assumption that a person is permanently moving out of state, because change of address forms are also designed to help someone get their mail forwarded, the ACLU said.

A person in the database may move temporarily for school, military or other reasons, rather than permanently changing residence, the ACLU wrote in a letter to counties.

“There are many reasons why you could be on this list and still be eligible and registered to vote in Pennsylvania,” Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

Those challenges are just one front in various legal disputes over whether mail-in ballots can be counted in a state that is expected to play a crucial role in determining the winner of the presidential election.

The counties that have faced challenges so far are in Philadelphia’s densely populated, left-leaning suburbs, where voters in the 2020 presidential election strongly supported Democratic President Joe Biden against Trump.

The counties receiving them — Bucks and Chester counties — expect their three-member election commissions to consider the challenges in a public meeting.

Bucks County said it received 191 complaints from a person it declined to identify, while Houser said complaints would be filed in Montgomery and Delaware counties. Those counties reported receiving no complaints Tuesday.

Yet deeming any of those voters ineligible or rejecting their ballot based solely on the challenge would violate federal and state law, the ACLU said.

People also receive related letters from “a friend in Pennsylvania” advising them to cancel their voter registration if they have left the state, Walczak said.

Walczak said voters from various parties were challenged, but it was heavily skewed toward Democrats because Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans.