Tom King, who represents the state and national Republican Party groups in the case, said he will appeal the decision.
Election officials cannot reject mail-in ballots with incorrect dates or no dates, as long as the ballots were submitted before the filing deadline, a Pennsylvania court has ruled.
A panel of the Commonwealth Court, a state appeals court, ruled on Aug. 30 that the requirement in the law for mail-in ballot envelopes to have dates written on them violates the Pennsylvania Constitution.
“Simply put, the refusal to count undated or incorrectly dated but timely received mail ballots submitted by otherwise eligible voters because of meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors violates the fundamental right to vote recognized in and guaranteed by the free and equal elections clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote for the 4–1 majority.
The ruling applies in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties.
The law in question, Act 77 of 2019, featured some updates to the mail-in ballot system, including a provision that requires voters to date the envelope in which the mail-in ballots are enclosed.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged that and other provisions, arguing that they are unconstitutional as they filed suit against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, and the Allegheny County Board of Elections.
The Pennsylvania Republican Party and the Republican National Committee intervened in the case and said the provisions do not violate the state Constitution.
The majority declined to rule against other provisions but said the date requirement is unconstitutional.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a social media statement that the court “got it right: an eligible voter’s minor error of forgetting to date or misdating a ballot envelope cannot be cause for disenfranchisement.”
The appeals court stated in the ruling that officials still have the authority to make sure mail-in ballots comply with other requirements, including deadlines for submission.
Pennsylvania’s Department of State stated that “multiple court cases have now confirmed that the dating of a mail-in ballot envelope, when election officials can already confirm it was sent and received within the legal voting window, provides no purpose to election administration.”
By Zachary Stieber
