HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will review the requirement for voters to include the accurate date on return envelopes when submitting mail-in ballots for counting.
This specific provision in state law has sparked over six legal battles in the last four years, several of which have escalated to the state’s highest court.
The justices are set to deliberate on whether the mandate for indicating the date on absentee and mail ballot envelopes contravenes a clause in the state constitution that guarantees elections to be free and fair.
Justice Christine Donohue, one of the five Democrats among the seven-justice panel, noted that the constitutional argument presented in this case is founded on the established fact that these dating requirements do not advance a “weighty interest” and hold no substantial role in the election process.
Alongside another Democratic colleague, Donohue expressed that the court’s decision to review the issue should have gone a step further by addressing the enforcement of the dating requirements before examining their constitutionality.
This case centers around 69 mail-in ballots stemming from two special elections for the state House, where a Philadelphia judge ruled that the ballots should be counted despite not having a handwritten date on their return envelopes.
A statewide Commonwealth Court upheld this ruling with a close 3-2 vote in late October. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court quickly intervened, placing a hold on the decision and stipulating that it would not be applicable during the upcoming presidential election set for November 5.
In previous instances, Democratic representatives and voting rights advocates have challenged the dating requirement, arguing that it leads to the rejection of ballots due to an insignificant clerical detail. On the other hand, Republicans argue that the inclusion of a date serves as a crucial security measure—even though election authorities do not utilize it to determine if a ballot was submitted prior to the deadline.
Since allowing mail-in voting for all registered voters in 2019, Pennsylvania has seen ongoing legal disputes concerning mail-in ballots.
Lower courts have consistently ruled that it is unconstitutional or illegal to discard ballots missing an accurate handwritten date on their outer envelope. However, higher courts, including the state Supreme Court, have prevented these rulings from being enforced.
In their order issued on Friday, the justices confirmed that they would also explore whether ruling the requirement for dating the exterior envelope unconstitutional would lead to the nullification of the entire 2019 voting law.
