A Pennsylvania court ruled on Oct. 30 that the state’s requirement for mail-in ballots to be correctly dated in order to be counted is unconstitutional, although the 3–2 decision, according to the judge’s opinion, applies only to a past special election.
A Commonwealth Court panel upheld a ruling by a Philadelphia judge stating that 69 ballots from the special election, submitted on time but lacking handwritten dates, must be counted.
“We cannot countenance any law governing elections, determined to be mandatory or otherwise, that has the practical effect in its application of impermissibly infringing on certain individuals’ fundamental right to vote,” she said later. “We are not being asked to make changes with respect to the impending 2024 General Election.”
“The only reason that either the trial court or the Majority would rule on this question now is precisely to change the rules for the already underway general election,” she said, referring to the Nov. 5 election in which some voters are casting early or absentee ballots.
The timing of the decision deprives the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of a reasonable opportunity to review before the Nov. 5 election, Commonwealth Court Judge Matthew Wolf said in another dissent.
The ruling went against the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, which, as intervenors, had asked the appeals court to overturn an earlier ruling by Court of Common Pleas Judge James Crumlish III. Crumlish’s ruling required the counting of the 69 ballots after finding that the date requirement violated the Pennsylvania Constitution.
The Republicans hadn’t reacted to the ruling by publication time.
The Philadelphia Board of Elections, named as a defendant in both of the consolidated cases that the appeals court considered, as well as an appellant in one of them, did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
McCullough said that the new ruling suffered from some of the same problems as the ruling that was vacated.
Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center, said after the latest ruling that the date requirement may be adjudicated further in the future and encouraged voters to still date the envelope in which a ballot is returned.