A federal court in western Pennsylvania decided on Tuesday that voters who mail in their ballots and forget to write the date or write the incorrect date on the return envelopes will have their votes tallied if the ballots arrive before the Election Day deadline.
Following the November 2022 election, voting rights organizations and five individual voters filed a lawsuit. In response, U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter, located in Erie, issued her ruling.
Baxter determined that rejecting ballots due to the dating requirement violates a federal provision against denying voters their right to vote due to criteria that are not relevant to their eligibility to vote, and he granted summary judgment in favor of the groups and voters.
Election authorities are aware of whether the ballot was received on time, hence the necessity for a handwritten date is needless and entirely irrelevant. Furthermore, the purpose of this Civil Rights Act clause was to prevent states from denying votes for non-essential reasons, such as this date restriction. In a statement, Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, stated, "We're grateful that the court understood that."
The Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Make The Road Pennsylvania, POWER Interfaith, and the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP filed the lawsuit. Together with the legal firm Hogan Lovells, the ACLU represented the groups.
Baxter's 77-page ruling joins a string of rulings on the issue of whether election officials may compel ballot envelopes bearing the date handwritten on them in accordance with Pennsylvania Act 77, which permits absentee voting without providing an explanation.
Act 77 made mail-in voting a popular choice for voters in 2020, but disagreements have arisen about what should happen to votes that have incorrectly filled-out return envelopes. When casting a mail-in ballot, voters must fill out a voter declaration on the back of the envelope, sign it, and add the date.
According to Baxter, the date requirement is against the federal Civil Rights Act's prohibition on ballot access limitations unrelated to a voter's credentials.
"When casting a ballot, the date of receipt is crucial. Here, none of the county boards employed the date on the outer envelope to ascertain the receipt of a voter's mail-in ballot for the November 2022 election, according to Baxter's letter.
Upon scanning the ballot, the Commonwealth's statewide election administration system logs the date of receipt, according to Baxter.
No county that put aside ballots that were either undated or improperly dated utilized the dates to assess the voter's eligibility. Additionally, various states processed ballots with identical problems in different ways due to differing interpretations of a ruling made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court days prior to the election on whether dates should be accepted.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM WAYNEDUPREE.COM
Baxter's judgment followed the decision of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, located in Philadelphia, rendered in a case involving two judicial candidates from Lehigh County, earlier this year. After the appeals court declared that contested mail-in ballots that had been returned without dates on their envelopes should be tallied, the 2021 contest was won by a margin of five votes.
The 3rd Circuit overturned a federal judge's ruling from Allentown, Pennsylvania, ruling that the date requirement was unconstitutional under the Civil Rights Act's materiality clause, which forbids limiting voting access to ballots in ways that are not relevant to a voter's qualifications.
In October 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 3rd Circuit's ruling without expressing an opinion, paving the way for more legal disputes on the ballot-dating requirement.
Following the November 2022 election, voting rights organizations and five individual voters filed a lawsuit. In response, U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter, located in Erie, issued her ruling.
Baxter determined that rejecting ballots due to the dating requirement violates a federal provision against denying voters their right to vote due to criteria that are not relevant to their eligibility to vote, and he granted summary judgment in favor of the groups and voters.
Election authorities are aware of whether the ballot was received on time, hence the necessity for a handwritten date is needless and entirely irrelevant. Furthermore, the purpose of this Civil Rights Act clause was to prevent states from denying votes for non-essential reasons, such as this date restriction. In a statement, Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, stated, "We're grateful that the court understood that."
The Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Make The Road Pennsylvania, POWER Interfaith, and the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP filed the lawsuit. Together with the legal firm Hogan Lovells, the ACLU represented the groups.
Baxter's 77-page ruling joins a string of rulings on the issue of whether election officials may compel ballot envelopes bearing the date handwritten on them in accordance with Pennsylvania Act 77, which permits absentee voting without providing an explanation.
Act 77 made mail-in voting a popular choice for voters in 2020, but disagreements have arisen about what should happen to votes that have incorrectly filled-out return envelopes. When casting a mail-in ballot, voters must fill out a voter declaration on the back of the envelope, sign it, and add the date.
According to Baxter, the date requirement is against the federal Civil Rights Act's prohibition on ballot access limitations unrelated to a voter's credentials.
"When casting a ballot, the date of receipt is crucial. Here, none of the county boards employed the date on the outer envelope to ascertain the receipt of a voter's mail-in ballot for the November 2022 election, according to Baxter's letter.
Upon scanning the ballot, the Commonwealth's statewide election administration system logs the date of receipt, according to Baxter.
No county that put aside ballots that were either undated or improperly dated utilized the dates to assess the voter's eligibility. Additionally, various states processed ballots with identical problems in different ways due to differing interpretations of a ruling made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court days prior to the election on whether dates should be accepted.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM WAYNEDUPREE.COM
Baxter's judgment followed the decision of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, located in Philadelphia, rendered in a case involving two judicial candidates from Lehigh County, earlier this year. After the appeals court declared that contested mail-in ballots that had been returned without dates on their envelopes should be tallied, the 2021 contest was won by a margin of five votes.
The 3rd Circuit overturned a federal judge's ruling from Allentown, Pennsylvania, ruling that the date requirement was unconstitutional under the Civil Rights Act's materiality clause, which forbids limiting voting access to ballots in ways that are not relevant to a voter's qualifications.
In October 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 3rd Circuit's ruling without expressing an opinion, paving the way for more legal disputes on the ballot-dating requirement.
