Philadelphia Must Count Undated and Wrongly Dated Mail-in Ballots From September Special Election, Court Affirms
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that the Philadelphia County Board of Elections must count 69 previously rejected mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect outer envelope dates cast by voters in a September 2024 special election for two state House districts.
The 3-2 decision affirms a lower court’s conclusion that the board’s refusal to count the contested ballots based on a “meaningless date requirement” violates the fundamental right to vote under the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause. But in a footnote, the majority made clear the decision does not apply to the upcoming general election.
The Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania Republican Party are likely to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, though the Commonwealth Court acknowledged the case is not subject to a special expedited appeals timeline since the ballots at issue were not cast in the 2024 general election. Nevertheless, the court urged the parties to “proceed expeditiously should they wish to appeal this decision.”
“Enforcement of the dating provisions has resulted in the arbitrary and baseless rejection of thousands of timely ballots, resulting in disenfranchisement in violation of the free and equal elections clause,” the majority opinion reads.
Wednesday’s ruling — which stems from a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Pennsylvania — comes as the latest in a long string of cases concerning undated and wrongly dated ballots in the consequential battleground state.
Numerous legal challenges in state and federal court have argued the Pennsylvania’s handwritten date rule for outer mail-in ballots is arbitrary since counties don’t actually rely upon handwritten dates to determine a voter’s eligibility or the timeliness of a mail-in ballot. Rather, election officials utilize the time at which a ballot is received and scanned into Pennsylvania’s mail-ballot tracking system.
During the 2022 midterm elections alone, the handwritten date requirement resulted in the disqualification of over 10,000 mail-in ballots. According to current data from the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, nearly 400 ballots cast in the upcoming general election have already been disqualified due to missing or incorrect dates. The county’s data do not reflect ballot issues that have already been resolved.
In a set of rulings from September and October, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to resolve the contentious matter before the upcoming Nov. 5 general election, therefore leaving the handwritten date rule in place.
With today’s decision, the handwritten date issue is likely to once again return to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the near future.
“We applaud the Commonwealth Court for its ruling recognizing the rights of voters, and we hope that every county will abide by this ruling in its processing of mail ballots next month,” said Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center in a press release. “Because today’s decision may not be the last word on this issue, we still advise voters to date their return envelope, take any opportunity they have to cure mistakes, or vote provisionally on election day if they made a mistake on the envelope date.”