A federal appeals court panel in Harrisburg stated that requiring accurate handwritten dates on mail-in ballot envelopes in Pennsylvania is not against civil rights law. They overturned a previous lower court decision on Wednesday.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a divided ruling, upheld the enforcement of the required date on return envelopes. This strict rule led to thousands of votes being invalidated in the 2022 election.
Although the total number of affected votes is small compared to the state's overall electorate, the ruling draws extra attention to Pennsylvania's election procedures as the state's Electoral College votes are at stake in the upcoming presidential election.
In November, a lower court judge ruled that mail-in ballots should be counted even without the proper dates, as long as they arrive on time. U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter argued that the envelope date does not help officials determine the timing of ballot receipt or a voter’s eligibility.
Judge Thomas Ambro, in the court’s ruling, stated that the section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act cited by the lower court does not apply to ballot-casting rules such as dates on envelopes, but rather is focused solely on the voter eligibility process.
Judge Ambro wrote in the court's opinion that mail-in voters in Pennsylvania must date the declaration on the return envelope of their ballot to make their vote valid. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously held this ballot-casting rule as mandatory, meaning failure to comply renders a ballot invalid under Pennsylvania law.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which assisted groups and voters challenging the date mandate, expressed concern that the ruling might result in the disqualification of thousands of votes due to what they view as a meaningless error.
Ari Savitzky, a lawyer with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, who argued the appeal, strongly disagreed with the panel majority's conclusion that voters could be disenfranchised for a minor paperwork oversight like forgetting to write an irrelevant date on the return envelope of their mail ballot. The ACLU is currently exploring all available options.
Republican groups at both state and national levels supported the date requirement, with the Republican National Committee hailing the decision as a significant win for election integrity and voter confidence.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have been much more inclined to vote by mail than Republicans since the expansion of mail-in ballots in 2019.
