PA Supreme Court tosses ruling on incorrectly dated mail ballots

Mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect handwritten dates may not be counted in November’s presidential election in Pennsylvania, potentially affecting thousands of votes in a critical swing state.

Two weeks after an appeals court ordered that elections officials should tabulate ballots with date errors, the state Supreme Court threw out that decision Friday, Sept. 13, on procedural grounds.

Attorneys representing the 10 civic engagement groups that challenged the date rule said the justices’ verdict left open the possibility of further legal action; but, with the election less than two months away, it is unclear whether there is enough time for the courts to reconsider the matter

“Thousands of voters are at risk of having their ballots rejected in November for making a meaningless mistake,” said Mimi McKenzie, legal director for the Public Interest Law Center, in a statement. “We will keep fighting to keep that from happening.”

Pennsylvanians are required to sign and date the outer return envelopes of their ballots, in accordance with Act 77, the 2019 law that introduced no-excuse mail voting and has been the subject of frequent legal battles.

The dates are not utilized in any way by county election boards, legal documents show. Officials stamp the return envelope with the date it was received and log the information into a statewide database.

More than 10,000 ballots, including 2% of all mail-in votes in Philadelphia, were set aside due to date-related mistakes during the 2022 general election, according to a brief filed by commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt. About 4,500 votes were disqualified in the most recent statewide election, the spring primaries.

Data from the City Commissioners indicates that older voters are more prone to mistakes. More than 60% of the canceled Philadelphia ballots in 2022 came from residents 60 and older.

The Republican National Committee and the state GOP appealed the Aug. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling that ordered election officials to count improperly dated ballots. Democrats generally supported the initial ruling.

“This is a huge win to protect the vote in Pennsylvania that will secure commonsense mail ballot safeguards and help voters cast their ballots with confidence,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump said in a statement. “The Keystone State will be absolutely critical in this election, and the Supreme Court has decided a major victory for election integrity.”

Attorneys for the party, in their appeal paperwork, argued that the earlier decision threatened “to unleash chaos, uncertainty and an erosion of public confidence” in the upcoming election.

A majority of Supreme Court justices, in a less-than-two page order, did not address that theory; instead, they wrote that the lower court lacked jurisdiction because the lawsuit did not include election boards in all 67 counties. The legal challenge only named officials in Philadelphia and Allegheny County, in addition to Schmidt.

Justice David Wecht, in a dissent, said that “a prompt and definitive ruling on the constitutional question presented in this appeal is of paramount public importance inasmuch as it will affect the counting of ballots in the upcoming general election.”

City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, a Democrat, agreed with Wecht and referred to the court’s decision as a “cop out.”

“No matter the number of counties named, the counties and the voters deserve an answer to this important question,” Deeley added, in a statement.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, in a response, called the ruling “disappointing” because it “leaves unanswered the important question of whether the dating requirement violates the Pennsylvania Constitution.”

In an attempt to reduce errors, the department in July instructed counties to pre-fill the year on mail ballots.