Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said in a press conference Thursday that the department sent a communication to Butler County Wednesday to inform it that both voter ID checks and signature matching ran afoul of state law.

This is an excerpt from a larger article that appears in Friday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read the full article.The county has stopped requiring photo identification for mail-in-ballot drop-offs only a day after the Butler Eagle reported about objections to the practice.They have additionally halted their process of matching signatures on the ballots to those on voter registrations.County Commissioner Kevin Boozel noted the change in their identification policy during a media event Thursday on missing mail-in-ballots. Previously, the commissioners and county solicitor required voters who were dropping off their mail-in-ballots to present their photographic identifications, a requirement that the American Civil Liberties Union said was illegal. Boozel said they stopped asking for identification after the Pennsylvania Department of State sent them “new guidance.”Butler County Solicitor Wil White said Wednesday that the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections, hadn't told him to stop asking for identifications.Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said in a press conference Thursday that the department sent a communication to Butler County Wednesday to inform it that both voter ID checks and signature matching ran afoul of state law.“We're making it very clear that that's not authorized,” she said.

This is an excerpt from a larger article that appears in Friday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read the full article.