State high court to expedite ruling on undated mail ballots

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to expedite the review of a lawsuit filed by state and national Republican parties over whether to count undated mail-in ballots.

The late Friday afternoon order indicates it will allow the case to skip a review by lower courts and will decide it through the submission of briefs, not oral arguments. The timeframe for submitting those court filings makes it appear that the justices are aiming to render a decision in time for the Nov. 8 election.

According to its order, the court will decide on whether votes cast in undated mail-in ballot envelopes should count toward election results and how that decision squares with the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Materiality Provision that protects voters from unnecessary disenfranchisement because of trivial errors.

Further, it will rule on whether the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and Pennsylvania Republican Party, and eight registered voters who filed the case have standing, or a legal interest, to bring the lawsuit against the state’s Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman.

In filing the lawsuit, the Republicans asked the court to rule that ballots cast in undated or incorrectly dated envelopes not count or at a minimum, that counties should be required to segregate them from other ballots.

Their lawsuit is based on a provision in a state election law that specifically states that anyone using an absentee or no-excuse mail-in ballot “shall . . . fill out, date and sign the declaration” printed on the outer envelope of the ballot.

Ms. Chapman, who is the state’s top election official, recently told counties that votes cast on undated ballots should be included in their official count.

Her guidance came shortly after the U. S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that arguably created ambiguity around how counties should handle undated ballot envelopes.

In that decision, the high court justices vacated a May ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope had to be counted in a 2021 Lehigh County judge race.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration interpreted that ruling to say it was “moot” because that race had been decided. Ms. Chapman further said the high court provided no justification for counties to exclude ballots due to a “minor omission.”

House Republican leaders subsequently sent a letter asking Ms. Chapman to alter her guidance to counties to encourage them to segregate undated ballots “given the high likelihood of new litigation.”