Mail ballots with date errors in Pennsylvania should no longer be discarded, as per a court ruling
In a significant decision, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is unconstitutional for Pennsylvania to disqualify mail-in ballots due to an inaccurate date on the return envelope. This ruling upholds an earlier decision by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.
The case has been a topic of debate among political parties, with Republican parties considering their next steps, including a potential appeal. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania supports the lawsuit against the provision and considers it unconstitutional to throw out a voter's ballot over the handwritten date.
Under Pennsylvania law, voters are required to write the date on the return envelope for their mail ballot. However, election officials have told courts that the requirement to write a date on the return envelope has no practical use and no effect on how they determine whether the ballot is valid or received on time.
The American Federation of Teachers of Pennsylvania, the Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP were among the groups that sued over the date requirement for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The campaign arms of Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate accused Republicans of trying to disenfranchise voters ahead of 2026's elections and vowed to fight for counting every legal vote.
The appeals court panel wrote that discarding thousands of ballots every election is not a reasonable trade-off in view of the date requirement's extremely limited and unlikely capacity to detect and deter fraud. They further stated that accepting ballots whose envelope has a missing or incorrect date "will have no effect on fraud detection."
The court's panel wrote that they were unable to justify the practice of discarding such ballots. This decision comes as a relief to many, with Wendy Coleman, president of AFT Pennsylvania, calling Tuesday's decision a "victory for Pennsylvania voters and our democracy."
It's important to note that voting fraud in the U.S. is rare, contrary to claims made by President Donald Trump regarding mail voting. Thousands of voters might skip or write an incorrect date due to confusion about the request, which could potentially lead to the disqualification of valid votes.
Republicans contend that the date requirement is a matter of election security and have pushed for the strictest possible interpretation of state law to disqualify ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court would need to take up the issue for Tuesday's ruling to be reversed. The state Supreme Court announced earlier this year that it will consider the issue of mail-in ballots with incorrect or missing dates.
This decision marks the latest instance where a court has instructed Pennsylvania to count such ballots. Every vote counts in statewide races in Pennsylvania, as demonstrated by the close result of last fall's U.S. Senate race. The case is expected to continue, with both parties preparing for potential next steps.
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