The Pa. Supreme Court says undated ballots won’t be counted in the general election

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court doubled down on Friday his previous statements that undated mail-in ballots should not be counted in next week’s election, suspending a lower court order that had injected uncertainty into the status of thousands of votes that will now be rejected.

In a unanimous ruling, the justices this week blocked a Commonwealth Court ruling that not including them in statewide voting tallies violated the rights guaranteed to voters under the state constitution.

While the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the merits of that claim, in its ruling Friday, it reiterated guidance it issued earlier this month that it would “not impose or tolerate substantial changes to existing laws and procedures during the upcoming elections.” .”

And in a biting concurrence, Judge Kevin Dougherty, a Democrat, rebuked the Commonwealth Court for what he saw as defiance.

“We said these carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation plays out,” Dougherty wrote. “We said what we meant and meant what we said.”

This decision puts an end – for the time being – to what has become a year long battle for some of the most contentious votes in Pennsylvania. Every year, tens of thousands of voters forget to date their ballots, as required by state law, or write an incorrect date on their ballot envelope.

Although undated ballots represent only a small portion of votes cast in Pennsylvania, they still have the potential to influence close races. And parties will compete for every vote next week because Pennsylvania could determine the fate of the races for the White House and U.S. Senate.

Republicans call the dating requirement common sense and argue that overturning it would undermine the will of the General Assembly.

But voting rights groups and Democrats, who are more likely to cast ballots by mail, have argued that they should still be counted because election administrators don’t use that handwritten data to determine whether a ballot was received on time. Rejecting it, they say, results in thousands of otherwise eligible voters losing their right to vote every year.

Although the state Supreme Court was asked to take up the issue last month, it dismissed the case, saying it was too close to the election to consider substantially changing the rules.

But with its ruling Wednesday, the Commonwealth Court threw that dynamic into disarray.

On its face, the decision that undated ballots should count only applied to an August special election in Philadelphia. But the logic the justices used — that not counting them amounted to a constitutional violation — left county election officials unsure how to proceed as they prepare for next week’s election.

“Unfortunately,” Dougherty wrote in his statement Friday, there have been a number of instances in the lead-up to the vote of challengers seeking to change election rules. “Even more unfortunately,” he added, “lower courts have repeatedly taken the bait.”

Judge Christine Donohue, a Democrat, agreed with her colleagues’ ruling to stay the Commonwealth Court’s decision but did not join Dougherty’s criticism of the lower courts, noting that the Supreme Court at one point took up the case should be taken into consideration.

“There are elections about every six months in this Commonwealth,” she noted. “Undoubtedly, the appellate decision of cases filed after the completion of one election may conflict with the next election. “

Republicans celebrated the ruling Friday as a victory and an affirmation of the state’s requirement to date ballots.

“Democrats have repeatedly tried to eliminate this important safeguard for mail-in ballots, and we have stopped them every time,” Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement.

Neil Makhija, a Democrat who chairs the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said that while Friday’s decision meant his county will not include the undated ballots in the final counts, he planned to keep a separate count of them anyway.

“We will continue to let voters know exactly how many voters could lose their right to vote as a result of what we believe remains an unconstitutional provision of the election code,” he said..