Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Makes Consequential Ruling On Mail-In Ballots, “Election Integrity Win”

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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Friday that mail-in ballots undated or improperly dated will not count in November’s election.

“The decision voids an Aug. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling that enforcing the requirement on ballot dating violated voters’ rights under the state constitution,” Votebeat reports.

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Per Votebeat:

The Supreme Court’s 4–3 decision was based on whether the lower court had jurisdiction in the case, not on the merits of the underlying claim, meaning that the constitutional argument could be made again in court.

Republicans who appealed the lower court’s decision argued to the state Supreme Court last week that the petitioners failed to include all counties as parties to the case, among other claims. The original suit, brought by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Public Interest Law Center on behalf of a coalition of voting rights groups, targeted the Department of State, Allegheny County, and Philadelphia.

“The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties,” the Supreme Court wrote in its order Friday. The inclusion of Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt as a named party was not enough to give the Commonwealth Court jurisdiction in the case, the order said.

“The Trump campaign and the RNC secured a major victory with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week. The state’s high court rejected a challenge by Democrats to remove the requirement that mail ballots be dated. Pennsylvania law will require voters to sign and date mail ballots,” X account ‘Election Wizard’ wrote.

“HUGE election integrity win in Pennsylvania. Following legal action from the RNC and @PAGOP, the PA Supreme Court REJECTED a Democrat attempt to count undated ballots. This makes mail voting in the Keystone State less susceptible to fraud. We will keep fighting and winning!” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said.

“This might be the single most important election integrity win of the year so far. PA’s Supreme Court ruling that undated or misdated mail-in ballots WON’T COUNT cuts off a whole vector of potential issues. Well done and congrats to @ChairmanWhatley and the entire team,” Charlie Kirk commented.

From the Associated Press:

Commonwealth Court two weeks ago had halted enforcement of the handwritten dates on exterior envelopes. The Supreme Court’s reversal of that decision raises the prospect that thousands of ballots that arrive in time might get thrown out in a key swing state in what is expected to be a close presidential contest.

Far more Democrats than Republicans vote by mail in the state. In recent elections, older voters have been disproportionately more likely to have had their mail-in ballots invalidated because of exterior envelope date problems.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley in a release called it a major victory for election integrity “that will protect commonsense mail ballot safeguards and help voters cast their ballots with confidence.”

Lawyers who helped represent the 10 community organizations that sued said in a statement that the decision left open the possibility of more litigation on the topic.

“Thousands of voters are at risk of having their ballots rejected in November for making a meaningless mistake,” said Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia. She urged voters to “carefully read and follow the instructions for submitting a mail-in ballot to reduce the number of ballots being rejected for trivial paperwork errors.”

Read the ruling HERE.


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