HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that it is unconstitutional for the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania to throw out mail-in ballots simply because the voter didn\u2019t write an accurate date on the return envelope.<\/p>\n
The unanimous decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Pennsylvania to stop throwing out such ballots and upheld the decision earlier this year<\/a> by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n In its 55-page opinion, the three-judge panel said it had to weigh the state\u2019s interest in throwing out the ballots against the constitutional right to vote.<\/p>\n The panel wrote that it was \u201cunable to justify\u201d the practice of discarding such ballots \u201cthat has resulted in the disqualification of thousands of presumably proper ballots.\u201d<\/p>\n Under Pennsylvania law, voters are required to write the date on the return envelope for their mail ballot. However, thousands of voters, confused by the request to write the date, might skip it or write another date, such as their birth date.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s decision marks the latest instance in more than a half-dozen cases where a court has instructed election officials in Pennsylvania to count such ballots.<\/p>\n However, higher courts have always reinstated the requirement in the heavily litigated matter that has pitted Democrats and their allies in trying to get rid of the requirement against Republicans who defend it. For Tuesday\u2019s ruling to be reversed, the U.S. Supreme Court would need to take up the issue.<\/p>\n Asked whether they might appeal, the state and national Republican parties said in a joint statement that they were considering their next steps in the case.<\/p>\n Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> of Pennsylvania supported the lawsuit against the provision and, in a statement Tuesday, said it is \u201cdisenfranchisement and unconstitutional\u201d to throw out a voter\u2019s ballot over the handwritten date. His administration\u2019s lawyers had argued that \u201cmeaningless errors shouldn\u2019t cost you your right to vote in Pennsylvania,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Democrats typically cast more mail-in ballots than Republicans, perhaps a result of President Donald Trump\u2019s demonization of mail-in voting and baseless allegations that it is rife with fraud. As recently as last week<\/a>, Trump claimed there is \u201cMASSIVE FRAUD\u201d due to mail voting<\/a>, when in fact voting fraud<\/a> in the U.S. is rare.<\/p>\n The decision affects a small percentage of votes typically cast in the state. However, it also results in thousands of mail-in ballots being thrown out in every election and, in the politically divided state, every vote truly counts<\/a> in statewide races. Last fall\u2019s U.S. Senate<\/a> race came down to about 15,000 votes.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s decision was a victory for the groups that sued, including the American Federation of Teachers of Pennsylvania. They were supported by the Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP, among others.<\/p>\n In a statement, AFT Pennsylvania\u2019s president, Wendy Coleman, called the decision a \u201cvictory for Pennsylvania voters and our democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n The campaign arms of Democrats in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate accused Republicans of trying to disenfranchise voters across the country ahead of 2026\u2019s elections and vowed to be \u201cunited in the fight to ensure every legal vote is counted.\u201d<\/p>\n The Republican parties said that the groups fighting to overturn the state law \u201care essentially fighting to count illegal ballots. That\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans contend that the date requirement is a matter of election security and have pushed for the strictest possible interpretation of state law to disqualify ballots. Still, election officials have told courts that the requirement to write a date on the return envelope has no practical use and no effect on how they determine whether the ballot is valid or received on time.<\/p>\n In its opinion, the appeals court panel said accepting ballots whose envelope has a missing or incorrect date \u201cwill have no effect on fraud detection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDiscarding thousands of ballots every election is not a reasonable trade-off in view of the date requirement\u2019s extremely limited and unlikely capacity to detect and deter fraud,\u201d the appeals court panel wrote.<\/p>\n On top of that, it said, the requirement \u201cseems to hamper rather than facilitate election efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n The state Supreme Court announced earlier this year that it will consider<\/a> the issue. That was after the court put off ruling<\/a> on a pending case before last year\u2019s presidential election and dismissed another<\/a> last fall on a technicality.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n