PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania voters must put the correct date on the return envelope of their mail-in ballots or the ballot won’t be counted. That’s the bottom line of a state Supreme Court order Friday, overturning an earlier decision that the date wasn’t needed.
Voters and election officials may have whiplash after a series of court decisions that went back and forth on whether the dating requirement should be mandatory or unnecessary.
Voting rights advocates and election officials across the state argued in this case that the date is meaningless and tossing a ballot without it denies the fundamental right to vote, guaranteed in the state constitution. The high court ruled not on the merit of those arguments but on a jurisdictional question.
The plaintiff's attorney says they’re considering the next step, so this may not be the end of it yet.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has urged the legislature to fix the election law to keep the courts out of it.
“Democrats in the House have already sent a bill over to the state senate and the bill that they sent would do common sense things that are supported by Republican and Democratic election clerks across Pennsylvania,” he said.
“They should take those common sense steps and I would sign it into law.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley says she is “highly disappointed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s cop-out in the B-PEP [Black Political Empowerment Project], dated ballots, case.”
“Thousands of voters are going to continue to be disenfranchised because of a legal technicality. I agree with Justice Wecht that ‘A prompt and definitive ruling on the constitutional question presented in this appeal is of paramount public importance in as much as it will affect the counting of ballots in the upcoming general election.’ No matter the number of counties named, the counties and the voters deserve an answer to this important question.”
Steve Loney, senior supervising attorney with nonprofit American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania called the ruling a setback for Pennsylvania voters but says they will keep fighting for them.
In the meantime, voters are urged to carefully follow directions on their mail-in ballots.