The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that voters must write accurate dates on their mail-in ballot envelopes, potentially impacting thousands of ballots in the upcoming presidential election. This ruling reverses a lower court's decision and raises concerns about voter suppression, as Democrats tend to vote by mail more than Republicans.
FILE – The Pennsylvania Judicial Center is shown shortly after its completion in Harrisburg, Pa., July 27, 2009.
The state’s high court ruled on procedural grounds, saying a lower court that found the mandate unenforceable should not have taken up the case because it did not draw in the election boards in all 67 counties. Counties administer the nuts and bolts of elections in Pennsylvania, but the left-leaning groups that filed the case only sued two of them, Philadelphia and Allegheny counties.
Far more Democrats than Republicans vote by mail in the state. In recent elections, older voters have been disproportionately more likely to have had their mail-in ballots invalidated because of exterior envelope date problems. The lawsuit, brought in May, argued that the mandate was not enforceable under a state constitutional provision that says all elections are “free and equal.”
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