In a significant decision impacting voting rights and election integrity, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ruled that Pennsylvania’s practice of rejecting undated or misdated mail-in ballots infringes upon the First Amendment. This decision mandates that such ballots must be counted, challenging previous rulings that upheld the date requirement for mail-in ballots.
The case was brought forth by plaintiffs including individual voters, Fetterman for PA, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The plaintiffs contended that the date on a mail-in ballot was not indicative of a voter’s eligibility and argued that disqualifying ballots due to date-related technicalities erected unjust barriers to voting, thereby violating constitutional rights. The full ruling can be accessed here.
The Pennsylvania election code had previously required that mail-in ballots be completed with a date, and ballots failing to meet this requirement were discarded. According to Judge Baxter, although the dating requirement posed a minimal inconvenience, the state failed to justify how this requirement served any legitimate governmental interest. Nevertheless, it was ruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in prior cases that this requirement did not breach the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits disenfranchised due to paperwork errors.
While the recent ruling did not address claims under the Fourteenth Amendment, it does create a precedent within Pennsylvania elections, particularly given that over 10,000 ballots were reportedly disqualified under the dating rule during the 2022 general election, as noted in the court documents.
Despite this district court ruling, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court is already poised to hear a related case which could further shape the interpretation and enforcement of mail-in voting regulations in the state. The ongoing litigation and future decisions on this issue remain of high importance, potentially affecting state and national elections and how mail-in ballots are treated in terms of compliance with voting rights laws.
The earlier judgment by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had upheld the notion that failure to date a ballot rendered it invalid per state law. The Republican National Committee had supported that view in a separate case during the 2024 election cycle. More details on this issue can be found here.