Pa. Supreme Court orders counties to set aside undated and wrongly dated mail ballots and not count

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Last edited Tue Nov 1, 2022, 07:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Pa. Supreme Court orders counties to set aside undated and wrongly dated mail ballots and not count them



by Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck
Published an hour ago

Pennsylvania counties must segregate and not count mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates, the state Supreme Court said Tuesday, in a ruling that could affect thousands of votes in November’s midterm elections.

“The Pennsylvania county boards of elections are hereby ordered to refrain from counting any absentee and mail-in ballots received for the November 8, 2022 general election that are contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” the court said in its order Tuesday afternoon.

The justices said they were deadlocked, 3-3, on whether rejecting undated and wrongly dated mail ballots violates federal civil rights law. They did not immediately issue any opinions that would explain the order and said they would come later. It was not immediately clear whether the court intended to have the ballots rejected altogether, since it ordered counties to set them aside and “refrain” from counting them.

“We hereby direct that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” the court said in the brief order.

(snip)

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-supreme-court-undated-mail-ballots-20221101.html

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I forgot they lost Max Baer so only have 6 on the Court. One of the (D) judges sided with the 2 (R)s.

I know some counties allow "curing" but am not sure which ones. I think at least here in Philly, there was a lot of promotions (ads including broadcast, snail mail, and social media) to those using mail ballots, to make sure to sign and date the outer envelopes and make sure the ballot was put in the secrecy envelope before putting it in the outer envelope.

But I also want to point out that although Democrats tend to use mail ballots more than Republicans in general, that doesn't mean that Democrats ONLY use mail ballots and that no Democrats will actually show up at the polls. I know even one of my sisters (who is a Democrat and lives in a suburban county) prefers to vote "in person" (her hubby has been a judge of elections in the past during most elections).