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Court: PA Mail-In Ballot Rule is Legal 03/28 06:09
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A requirement for Pennsylvania voters to put
accurate handwritten dates on the outside envelopes of their mail-in ballots
does not run afoul of a civil rights law, a federal appeals court panel said
Wednesday, overturning a lower court ruling.
A divided 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold enforcement of
the required date on return envelopes, a technical mandate that caused
thousands of votes to be declared invalid in the 2022 election.
The total number is a small fraction of the large state's electorate, but
the court's ruling puts additional attention on Pennsylvania's election
procedures ahead of a presidential election in which its Electoral College
votes are up for grabs.
A lower court judge had ruled in November that even without the proper
dates, mail-in ballots should be counted if they are received in time. U.S.
District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter said the envelope date is irrelevant in
helping elections officials decide whether a ballot was received in time or if
a voter is qualified.
In the court's opinion, Judge Thomas Ambro said the section of the 1964
Civil Rights Act that the lower court relied upon does not pertain to
ballot-casting rules broadly, such as dates on envelopes, but "is concerned
only with the process of determining a voter's eligibility to cast a ballot."
"The Pennsylvania General Assembly has decided that mail-in voters must date
the declaration on the return envelope of their ballot to make their vote
effective," Ambro wrote. "The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously held
this ballot-casting rule is mandatory; thus, failure to comply renders a ballot
invalid under Pennsylvania law."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped represent
groups and voters who challenged the date mandate, said the ruling could mean
thousands of votes won't be counted over what it called a meaningless error.
"We strongly disagree with the panel majority's conclusion that voters may
be disenfranchised for a minor paperwork error like forgetting to write an
irrelevant date on the return envelope of their mail ballot," Ari Savitzky, a
lawyer with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project who argued the appeal, said in a
statement. "We are considering all of our options at this time."
State and national Republican groups defended the date requirement, and the
Republican National Committee called the decision a "crucial victory for
election integrity and voter confidence."
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have been far more likely to vote by mail than
Republicans under an expansion of mail-in ballots enacted in 2019.
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