Zany Progressive: Previously, I’ve talked about the rule Pennsylvania Republicans created that an error in the date on the outer envelope of our mail-in ballots could cause votes to be tossed out and how ridiculous it was.
I then celebrated when a court ruled that votes couldn’t be tossed out because someone wrote the wrong date on the envelope by accident, discussing how insignificant the date really is when our mail-in ballots are placed in a “secrecy envelope” before going into the outer envelope where the voter then seals it closed and signs the flap—and now dates the signature as well.
At first the GOP created a rule that an incorrect date would invalidate the ballot. A common date-related error was a voter writing in their birthdate instead of the current date.
As a remedy they redesigned the envelope—by adding the “20” portion of the year so voters only had to write in the month, day, and last 2 digits of the year.
It was then shown to cause voters to leave the last 2 digits of the year empty, so they redesigned it again, this time to include the entire year, 2024, so voters only had to fill in the month and day.
The ability for an error in the date to invalidate a ballot was challenged in court and it was ruled that the date on the outer envelope could not serve as a reason for invalidating someone’s vote.
Now the PA Supreme Court has ruled that an error in that date can actually cause a vote to be tossed out. So much for all the progress made in stopping the GOP from finding another excuse to toss out legitimate ballots. So frustrating!
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Pennsylvanians’ mail ballots must have a proper date on their envelopes or they will be rejected, under a decision Friday from the state Supreme Court that could affect thousands of voters this November.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated a Commonwealth Court ruling from Aug. 30 that found the state’s requirement on ballot dating was an unconstitutional violation of voters’ rights.
Republicans who appealed that decision argued to the state Supreme Court last week that plaintiffs failed to include all counties as parties to the case, among other claims. The original suit, brought by the ACLU and Public Interest Law Center on behalf of a coalition of voting rights groups, targeted the Department of State, Allegheny County, and Philadelphia.
The Supreme Court ruled on jurisdictional grounds, not on the merits of the underlying claim, meaning this argument could be made again.
“The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties,” the court wrote in its order Friday afternoon. The inclusion of Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt as a named party was not enough to give the Commonwealth Court jurisdiction in the case, the order said.
Earlier this summer, a coalition of civil rights groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, among others, brought the case challenging the dating requirement under the free and equal elections clause of the state Constitution.
It is the latest of several challenges to the dating requirement since the state implemented its mail voting law, Act 77, in 2020. Act 77 required voters to sign and date the outer return envelope of their mail ballots, and return the ballot in a secrecy envelope, in order for them to be counted.
Federal judges have gone back and forth over whether enforcing the requirement violated federal voting law. The current case is the first to directly challenge this requirement under the state constitution.
The free and equal election clause says that “elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The ACLU and Public Interest Law Center argued on behalf of the voting rights groups that the dating requirement violated this provision.
In August, a majority of a five-member panel of Commonwealth Court judges agreed with them.
“The refusal to count undated or incorrectly dated but timely mail ballots submitted by otherwise eligible voters because of meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors violates the fundamental right to vote recognized in the free and equal elections clause,” Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote for the 4-1 majority.
Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based election lawyer who was not part of this case but has been involved in other lawsuits challenging the dating requirement, said this means that, barring another ruling, voters will need to write a date on their ballot return envelope in order for the ballot to be counted.
Thousands of ballots are rejected each election for dating issues. During the April primary, counties rejected roughly 8,500 ballots, or 1.22% of those returned, for lacking a signature, date, or being returned without a secrecy envelope, according to an analysis of Pennsylvania Department of State data. More than 4,400 of those were rejected for dating issues.
Bonin noted that the NAACP’s challenge to the requirement under federal law could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he is also representing clients challenging the requirement in a separate case.
“This is a huge win to protect the vote in Pennsylvania that will protect commonsense mail ballot safeguards and help voters cast their ballots with confidence. The Keystone State will be absolutely critical in this election, and the Supreme Court has decided a major victory for election integrity,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.
The ACLU and Pennsylvania Department of State did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
