HARRISBURG (TNS) — Pennsylvania’s rules on handling undated mail-in ballots is once again a matter before the court.
The state and national Republican parties filed a lawsuit on Sunday challenging Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration’s guidance to counties to include undated mailed ballots in their official vote count.
The Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and Pennsylvania Republican Party along with eight registered voters filed the case in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking for an expedited review of a case dealing with undated mail-in ballots.
Specifically, they are asking for the state’s high court to skip a review by lower courts and to order undated mailed ballots not to be counted. At minimum, they ask the court to order the segregation of incorrectly dated or undated ballots.
They point out state law specifically states that anyone using an absentee or no-excuse mail-in ballot “shall … fill out, date and sign the declaration” printed on the outer envelope of the ballot.
However, Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman last week issued a statement to counties saying votes cast on undated ballots should be included in their official count. Her statement came in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that arguably created ambiguity around how counties should handle undated ballots.
“As the Pennsylvania legislature and U.S. Supreme Court have made clear, undated mail-in ballots should not be counted,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer, and PAGOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas in a joint statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Republicans are holding Pennsylvania Democrats accountable for their brazen defiance of the Supreme Court and the rules duly set by the legislature. PennsylvaniaDemocrats have a history of election integrity failures and Pennsylvanians deserve better: this lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State.”
The state department responded to the lawsuit, saying, “We have no comment at this time.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling came in a case involving a Lehigh County judicial race. The high court vacated a regional federal court decision that ordered timely received undated mailed ballots to be counted.
Wolf administration officials interpreted that ruling as saying the lower court ruling was “moot” because the race at issue in that case had already been decided.
Chapman issued a statement, saying the justices’ decision “provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes.”
She said, “Every county is expected to include undated ballots in their official returns for the Nov. 8 election.”
Further muddying the waters, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled in June in a separate ballot-counting case that undated ballots should be counted. But knowing of the case brewing in federal courts, the judge ordered those ballots be kept separate.
Chapman said the Commonwealth Court ruling and federal law prohibit excluding legal votes because the voter omitted an irrelevant date on the ballot return envelope.
However state House Republican leaders reacted to Chapman’s latest direction to counties about counting undated ballots in official vote counts, calling for her to direct counties to keep those ballots separate “given the high likelihood of new litigation.”
House GOP spokesman Jason Gottesman said given the confusion arising from the secretary’s statement and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, it only makes sense for counties to prepare for court challenges to election results.
Wolf spokeswoman Beth Rementer responded, accusing the Republicans of sowing confusion aimed at discrediting the democratic process and setting up a sequel in November to the “post-2020 general election chaos.”
In this latest lawsuit, the Republicans argue that setting aside the secretary’s guidance on undated ballots “will promote ‘[c]onfidence in the integrity of our electoral process,’ facilitate ‘the functioning of our participatory democracy,’ and eliminate the ‘consequent incentive to remain away from the polls’ that the current state of affairs creates.”
According to the RNC, this is the second time in recent weeks that it brought litigation to remedy these types of issues. It is involved in 71 cases of election integrity litigation in 20 states this cycle.
