Federal judge rules undated Pa. ballots must be counted, finding state requirement unconstitutional
The ruling will likely be appealed before local primary elections in May.
A federal judge ruled Monday that Pennsylvania counties cannot reject mail ballots simply because a voter failed to write the correct date on the ballot’s outer envelope.
Judge Susan Baxter of Pennsylvania’s Western District found that the state’s dating requirement for mail ballots violated voters’ First and 14th Amendment rights and therefore could not be enforced.
In a 21-page ruling, Baxter said Pennsylvania’s law served no governmental purpose for the state.
“Since there is no evidence that the date requirement serves any state interest, even a slight burden on voting rights cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny,” she wrote
Baxter’s ruling, though significant, is all but certain to be appealed to a higher court as part of a yearslong battle over some of Pennsylvania’s most extensively litigated ballots. An appeal may mean the ruling is not enforced in upcoming elections.
Under current Pennsylvania law, voters must sign and date the outer envelope of their mail ballot in order for it to be counted.
Election officials across Pennsylvania have persistently said the date on the ballot serves no practical purpose as they rely instead on postmarks to confirm receipt of the ballot. But to follow state law, county officials have rejected thousands of ballots each year cast by otherwise eligible voters.
Democrats and voting rights activists have spent years working to throw out the requirement, arguing it needlessly disenfranchises voters. Republicans, however, have defended the law, arguing that the Pennsylvania General Assembly included it for a reason and that the legislative intent should be respected.
The Pennsylvania Department of State celebrated the decision as a “victory for Pennsylvania’s voters.”
“A voter’s fundamental right to vote should not be burdened by a meaningless technicality,” a spokesperson for the department said in statement. “County elections officials already confirm every ballot was sent and received within the legal voting window
Over the last four years, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected efforts to overturn the date requirement on procedural grounds and federal appeals court judges upheld the requirement in a previous case. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced that they would review yet another case on the matter.
Adam Bonin, an attorney who represented voters and Sen. John Fetterman’s 2022 campaign in the case before Baxter on Monday, said the judge’s ruling was a good step forward. But he would not yet tell voters to stop writing dates on their ballots as appeals remain possible.
“The court got it right,” Bonin said. “Especially finding that there is no purpose in this requirement, there just isn’t.”
The Pennsylvania Republican Party and Republican National Committee and have repeatedly appealed rulings in state and federal court that overturned the state law.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the RNC said it expects to appeal again, meaning Baxter’s ruling could be blocked before it is applied in May’s primary elections.
“The RNC has been successfully fighting this case for more than two years, and we fully expect to appeal this decision. Requiring mail-in ballots to be dated is a commonsense safeguard which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously upheld as legal and required by state law,” said Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the RNC.