Charles Langston:Pennsylvania high court asked to keep counties from tossing ballots lacking a date

HARRISBURG,Charles Langston Pa. (AP) — Left-leaning groups and voting rights advocates asked Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to stop counties from throwing out what could be thousands of mail-in ballots in November’s election in a battleground state that’s expected to play a critical role in picking the next president.

The lawsuit, filed directly to the state’s highest court, is the latest attempt by the groups to ensure counties don’t reject mail-in ballots that have an incorrect or missing date on the ballot envelope.

The suit was filed six weeks before the presidential contest and comes as mail-in voting is just beginning in the state. It is at least the third election-related case now pending before the state Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania law states voters must date and sign their mail-in ballot. Voters not understanding that provision has meant that tens of thousands of ballots lacked an accurate date since Pennsylvania dramatically expanded mail-in voting in a 2019 law.

But the lawsuit’s plaintiffs contend that multiple courts have found that a voter-written date is meaningless in determining whether the ballot arrived on time or whether the voter is eligible. As a result, rejecting someone’s ballot either because it lacks a date or a correct date should violate the Pennsylvania Constitution’s free and equal elections clause, the plaintiffs said.

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The parties won their case on the same claim in a statewide court just four weeks ago over Republican opposition. But it was thrown out by the state Supreme Court on a technicality before justices considered the merits.

Democrats, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, have sided with the plaintiffs, who include the Black Political Empowerment Project, Make the Road Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh United, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Republicans contend that requiring the date is an election safeguard and accuse Democrats of trying to change the rules of elections at the 11th hour.

The court, with five justices elected as Democrats and two as Republicans, is playing an increasingly important role in settling election disputes in the lead up to the presidential election in Pennsylvania, much as it did in 2020’s presidential election.

Issues around mail-in voting are hyper-partisan: Roughly three-fourths of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania tend to be cast by Democrats. Republicans and Democrats alike attribute the partisan gap to former President Donald Trump, who has baselessly claimed mail-in voting is rife with fraud.

Justices still must vote on whether or not to take the case filed Wednesday.

Justices also do not have to take another case brought to it last week by the Republican National Committee and the state Republican Party that seeks, in part, to settle cases emerging from lower courts that involve similar issues.

In its lawsuit, the GOP wants the high court to restrict counties from telling voters if it will reject their mail-in ballot. Shapiro’s administration has put procedures in place to notify those voters to give them time to fix a garden-variety error or cast a provisional ballot in its place.

The GOP also wants the court to prevent counties from giving voters the opportunity to fix an error on their mail-in ballot — like a missing signature or date on the envelope — and bar counties from letting voters cast a provisional ballot in its place.

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Republicans say state law doesn’t allow it.

Democratic-controlled counties typically do more than Republican-controlled counties to notify voters that their ballot will be rejected and to help them fix it or cast a provisional ballot in its place.

In recent weeks, lower courts have ordered two Republican-controlled counties to let voters cast a provisional ballot if their mail-in ballot was to be rejected.

Those decisions, if applied to all counties, could mean hundreds or thousands more votes are counted in November’s election.

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Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter