Workers sort mail-in ballots April 23, 2024, at Northampton County Courthouse in Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Voting rights groups are trying again to invalidate Pennsylvania’s requirement that voters write a date on their mail ballot return envelope, following a recent defeat in federal court.
Under current interpretation of state law, county election officials must reject any mail ballot that lacks a date or has an incorrect date on its return envelope. Of the approximately 715,000 mail ballots returned by voters in April’s primary election, more than 4,400 were rejected for this reason. That number could greatly increase in November, when turnout is expected to be much higher.
When Pennsylvania passed its no-excuse mail voting law, Act 77, in 2019, it used much of the same language as the state’s absentee voting statute. Both laws require voters to write a date on their return envelope, and courts have interpreted that to mean that the date must be between the day the ballot was sent out and Election Day.As the use of mail voting expanded under Act 77, so too did the number of ballots rejected for lacking a proper date on the envelope.
Pennsylvania’s appellate courts have already shown that they are amenable to this argument. In 2022, state and national GOP groups brought a case,, against the Department of State over its guidance to counties that they should count undated or incorrectly dated ballots if they are received on time. Most of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices agreed that a challenge under the clause would succeed.
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