Pa. Supreme Court again rules that Philly and other counties cannot count undated mail ballots

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

Published Nov. 18, 2024, 4:30 p.m. ET


The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling reiterating its previous stance that undated or misdated mail ballots should not be counted in the 2024 election, dealing a blow to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s hopes that a recount and litigation will help him overcome his more than 15,000-vote deficit to Republican Dave McCormick.

The 4-3 ruling, which was requested by the Republican Party and opposed by Casey’s campaign, followed moves by elections officials in Democratic-controlled counties — including Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery — to have the ballots counted despite the high court instructing them to exclude those votes earlier in the year. The ruling applies to all counties.

Democrats in those counties and elsewhere have pushed to include mail ballots with defects related to the dates voters are required to write on them because the dates are not used by election administrators to determine whether ballots are legitimate. Instead, they only count ballots that are received between when the ballots are distributed and Election Day, making it impossible for a vote to be counted outside of that timeframe regardless of what date a voter writes on the ballot.

Republicans have argued that those votes must be excluded from the count because state law requires voters to date their mail ballots. McCormick’s campaign joined the GOP lawsuit after it was filed. While the ruling settles how these types of ballots are handled this year, the longer legal battle may not be over because the court has not yet weighed in on the underlying question of whether rejecting undated ballots on what Democrats describe as a technicality constitutes a violation of rights guaranteed to voters by the state constitution.

Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/pennsylvania-supreme-court-undated-mail-ballots-senate-recount-20241118.html

---

No paywall (gift)

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Cannot understand what difference the date makes. It's not like it's the wrong year.

The instructions are still too long. Took 3 reads to find 'put it in the inner envelope' and 'seal' the inner and outer.

[Intractable]

8. "The instructions are still too long."

I agree. I forgot to put mine in the security envelope. I realized this after I sealed the outer envelope.

But, at least I remembered the all-important date.

[Jose Garcia]

2. For those keeping score at home, Democrats have a 5-2 majority in the Court

[kirby]

3. They may be interpreting the law correctly...

but the law is bullshit in the first place. These laws are nothing but obstacles for higher voter participation. Sure some people do not read instructions correctly or may have other issues but we need to make voting easier not harder.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. This is the issue exactly

The "law" (Act-77) was hastily devised as a means for the GOP to get rid of "straight-party ticket" voting that Democrats tended to widely utilize because it was easy (in the past, "pull one lever" or fill in one oval and the whole party slate was voted for).

The "exchange" was to suddenly allow "mail voting" by creating a new category - a "no excuse absentee ballot". That was the "sweetener" added to the bill so that-then Gov. Tom Wolf would sign off on it and he did.

I remember attending "telephone Town Halls" with my state Senator and asking about whether we would ever get mail ballots and at the time (before 2019), he was sure that it wasn't even being considered.

In any case, we did finally get mail ballots, but what they did with this was to add some hurdles like dates/signatures on outer envelopes (ignoring postmarks) and secrecy envelopes, etc., as well as require that no mail ballot be "canvased" (ballots removed from envelopes and prepped for scanning) until the polls opened on election day.

[Igel]

5. This is what democracy looks like.

You have a majority in two houses--sans filibuster--and a governor that agrees with them both and you get a law.

You can declare that democracy is only valid when it "bends towards" whatever our "justice" is or you can just say it is what it is. Democracy is a process and the outcome depends on the demos that has the kratos ('power over').

For important things, I like having at least a supermajority in favor. Squashes the 50%+1 idea, but means there's at least not a stochastic majority that prefers something. It's not "minority rule", it's "minority veto over rule by a simple majority"--the minority doesn't rule, it prevents being ruled over by a small difference in winners/losers.

As it is, that's Our Democracy and it's the kind of "democracy," minimal majority rules, that many yearn for. (Personally, having often been in the minority, I hate majoritarianism. A scant majority imposing something divisive and onerous on a scant minority is not "liberty", and our Constitution is set up to, among other things, "secure the blessings of liberty" to us and our progeny.)

Personally, I hate not having a "straight-party ticket" as an option. It was convenient. I could pull one lever, push one button, click one option, and all the races were filled in. Then I could review and and the few that I objected to without messing with the other 50-70 races. Now I have to do it by hand. On the other hand, too many just go in and say, "Corps is mother, corps is father" and on the basis of one or two prominent (or state) people vote all the way down the ballot--and often miss the issues at the bottom of most ballots I've seen.

[stopdiggin]

7. Well said. It is not 'democracy' only when it delivers the result

wished for. And "the law is bulls*it" argument - is exactly the line of reasoning that 'constitutional sheriffs' and Tina Peters anarchists espouse. We can do without that, thanks. And PA board of elections should have been listening to (obeying) court instructions all along.

[Polybius]

6. Do we know who this hurts more?

Who are more prone to make mistakes with the dates? Republicans or Democrats?