A state court Friday halted enforcement of a requirement that voters include accurate, handwritten dates on envelopes used to submit mail-in ballots. The ruling will likely keep several thousand Pennsylvania votes from being thrown out in November. Without this requirement, unsavory people could keep ‘finding’ ballots until their candidate wins.
The Commonwealth Court ruled 4-1 that disqualifying voters over a date violates the state constitution’s clause that addresses “free and equal” elections.
“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” in the Pennsylvania Constitution, wrote Judge Ellen Ceisler in the majority opinion, siding with the left-leaning groups that sued three months ago.
Pennsylvania is a must-win state in this November election. The race will be very close.
The number of ballots could exceed 10,000.
A Lone Dissent
Judge Patricia McCullough was the lone dissent. She said the majority showed “a wholesale abandonment of common sense.” They ignored more than a century of legal precedent and rewriting the 2019 state law that dramatically expanded mail-in voting.
“I must wonder whether walking into a polling place, signing your name, licking an envelope, or going to the mailbox can now withstand the majority’s newly minted standard,” McCullough wrote.
The case was brought against the secretary of state and the election boards in Philadelphia and Allegheny County. It includes Pittsburgh. State and national Democratic Party groups joined the lawsuit, supporting its goals.
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Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on social media that the ruling was “a victory for Pennsylvanians’ fundamental right to vote.”
Republicans will appeal.
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