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Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.

This November’s retention elections for judges on Pennsylvania’s appellate courts are shaping up to be more combative and political than usual, thanks in part to a decade of battles over the commonwealth’s election laws.

This story was produced by the Berks County Bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom. Sign up for Good Day, Berks, a daily dose of essential local stories at spotlightpa.org/newsletters/gooddayberks.

Only Pennsylvanians are voting for these positions. No other state still elects its poll workers, and these contests are usually riddled with vacancies.

An amendment to the Pennsylvania Election Code made voting by mail without an excuse an option for voters for the first time in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the question of whether the requirement to write the date on a mail ballot’s return envelope has been an issue in every election.

In most cases, state supreme court elections get little attention, but they can have important impacts on policy.— There will be one state with closely watched state supreme court elections in 2025: Pennsylvania.

Pack had been registered to vote in Bergen County since 2004 and in Philadelphia County since 2016, casting ballots in the 2024 General Election in both locations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.

Two Pennsylvania residents are charged with election fraud in separate incidents during the 2020 and 2024 elections, facing potential prison time and fines.