US Supreme Court turns away Pennsylvania mail-in ballot dispute
Source: Reuters
January 21, 2025 9:49 AM EST Updated 3 hours ago
Jan 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear a bid by civil and voting rights groups to end Pennsylvania's mandate that mail-in ballots bear a handwritten date on the outer envelope, a requirement they contend is unnecessary and has resulted in needless disqualification of legitimate ballots.
The justices turned away an appeal by the plaintiffs of a lower court's ruling that upheld the requirement and rejected the argument that it violated a provision in federal law that bars discarding ballots due to paperwork errors that are "not material" in determining whether a person is qualified to vote.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 decided that the date requirement "serves little apparent purpose" as it is not used by officials to determine whether it was received on time. Nevertheless, it remains valid because the 1964 Civil Rights Act applies only to voter registration rules when a state is determining who is qualified to vote, not "how a qualified voter must cast his ballot for it to be counted," the 3rd Circuit ruled.
Pennsylvania often is pivotal in determining the outcome of presidential elections, as it again was last year. Republican President Donald Trump won the state over his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in November after losing it to Democrat Joe Biden four years earlier. The requirement at issue affects voters in Pennsylvania who cast ballots by mail. It mandates that they place their secret ballot into an outer return envelope, on which they must sign and date a declaration that they are qualified to vote.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-turns-away-pennsylvania-mail-in-ballot-dispute-2025-01-21/
The PA Supreme Court is supposed to look at this (which aside from the SCOTUS doing a "states rights" with this, is where it would need to be resolved until we can get the VRA updates enacted... one day).
Pennsylvania High Court to Take up Long-Running Dispute Over Mail-In Ballots' Return Envelope Dates
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leaving 4 blocks to fill in the month and day. Although Philly's ballot was a different color, including the full year was similar to this -
The "date" is supposed to be the date completed and turned in (whether by mail, a drop box, or at an election office).
Some people still ignored that or tried to put in their birthdates or were too accustomed to doing the EU-style (or military) - DDMMYYYY, putting the day of the month in first and then the month, instead of the month and then day as MMDDYYYY.
This isn't about the Post Office cancellation stamp, because they've been very inconsistent with those stamps. Mostly they don't do it anymore. The argument in Pennsylvania is that even if the Post Office does cancel the stamped envelope, it's not proof that the voter mailed the ballot in time.
Long story short, the Repukes want to have a "gotcha" that allows them to invalidate as many mailed ballots as they can. Throwing out ballots that were improperly signed and dated is any easy one for them.
It would be a completely different story if more of the R voters were using the mailed ballots.
