{"id":143952,"date":"2026-03-20T18:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/143952\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T18:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:14:10","slug":"tennessee-joins-20-other-states-in-urging-scotus-to-allow-law-requiring-pennsylvania-voters-to-handwrite-date-on-mail-in-ballot-envelopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/143952\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee joins 20 other states in urging SCOTUS to allow law requiring Pennsylvania voters to handwrite date on mail-in ballot envelopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Tennessee has joined an amicus brief led by the State of Missouri<\/a> urging the Supreme Court to overturn a decision that struck down a Pennsylvania election law. <\/p>\n

The brief, filed by 21 states in total, asks that SCOTUS review a federal appellate decision that struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring that voters in the state handwrite the date on mail-in ballots. <\/p>\n

File in support of a petition by the Republican National Committee, the brief argues that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit should not have invalidated the Pennsylvania law. They say that doing so \u201cinterferes with the authority of state legislatures to regulate elections and oversteps constitutional limits on the judicial role.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis should be an easy case,\u201d the brief states. \u201cThe challenged Pennsylvania law merely requires voters to write a date in partially pre-filled boxes. The notion that such a mundane and simple requirement violates the right to vote defies common sense.\u201d <\/p>\n

It goes on to say that the Third Circuit\u2019s decision \u201cdefies logic and sows more chaos into an area of law that urgently needs clarification.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania law in question has proven to be contentious, as many people in the state have seen their mail-in votes thrown out or not counted if the date on the envelope was wrong or missing. According to The Public Interest Law Center<\/a>, thousands of voters have their mail-in ballots rejected every year due to this mistake. <\/p>\n

\"WSMV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cElection officials do not use the date to determine whether the ballot was returned on time \u2014 ballots must be received by county boards of election by 8 p.m. on Election Day, regardless of the date handwritten on the envelope \u2014 and the date is not used to determine voter eligibility,” the nonprofit said in 2024. \u201cNonetheless, this essentially meaningless requirement caused the rejection of at least 10,000 ballots from voters who had submitted their mail-in ballots on time in the 2022 general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

The states that filed the amicus brief say that the decision to strike down the law enforcing that handwritten date requirement \u201cundermines federalism and the separation of powers by giving federal courts undue authority over election administration.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy only works if people have faith in elections,\u201d Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said. \u201cCommon sense safeguards, like requiring a voter to handwrite a date on a mail-in-ballot envelope, should not be controversial. Courts need to protect the legitimacy of the electoral process, not undermine it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other states included on the nreif include Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 WSMV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Tennessee has joined an amicus brief led by the State of Missouri urging the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[65827,836,65828,7316,28,65829,30,29,65830,65826,5018,16641,7426],"class_list":["post-143952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-amicus-brief","tag-election","tag-election-integrity","tag-missouri","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-election-law","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-public-interest-law-center","tag-scotus","tag-supreme-court","tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states","tag-tennessee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}