Philadelphia's top election official is warning that thousands of mail-in ballots could be thrown out in November unless changes are made to rules around "secrecy envelopes" -- second sleeves that help prevent poll workers from seeing how someone voted.

The Pennsylvania Supreme court ruled last Friday that officials can reject so-called naked ballots that are received without the secrecy envelope. State election officials had previously provided guidance telling counties to count naked ballots.

Based on error rates in previous elections, that could mean more than 100,000 mail-in ballots are at risk, according to Philadelphia city commissioner Lisa Deeley.

Deeley wrote a letter Monday to Republican state House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Republican state Senate President Joseph Scarnati, calling for urgent legislative action to eliminate the secrecy sleeve requirement.
She argued that the requirement could cause the state to be the "subject of significant post-election legal controversy, the likes of which we have not seen since Florida in 2000." //

Cutler spokesman Mike Straub said there's no plan to change the requirement.
"The Supreme Court was very, very clear in their ruling that the secrecy envelopes served an important purpose in ensuring the confidentiality of every ballot," said Straub. "The court has really made that official. We really don't have any plans to take that up again."