By Blake Wolf, OAN Staff
Friday, September 13, 2024 5:53 PM
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Friday that temporarily dated mail-in ballots won't be counted in November's election, a potentially major decision for the deadlocked battleground state.
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The decision comes after a lower court ruled that it is unconstitutional to reject mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley celebrated the Supreme Court's decision online, calling it a “huge victory for election integrity” in a Twitter post.
“This will ensure that voting by mail in the Keystone State is less susceptible to fraud,” he said. “We will keep fighting, and we will keep winning!”
Democrats who are skeptical of the date requirement argue that the date on the mail-in ballot envelope “disenfranchises voters.”[have] It has nothing to do with voter eligibility and serves no other purpose than to prevent voters from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to vote.”
Mandatory mail-in voting has a long history of litigation in Pennsylvania, dating back to the 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats sued over the issue. They demanded that undated or misdated mail-in ballots be counted.
More recently, voting rights groups went to court in May to try to block the submission of improperly formatted ballots, initially succeeding in a lower court ruling that was overturned by the Supreme Court on Friday.
The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party support the repeal effort and have said they are working to protect election integrity.
“Today's procedural ruling is a setback for Pennsylvania's voters, but we will continue to fight for them. Voters who submitted their ballots on time should have their vote counted and their voice heard,” said Steve Roney, an attorney for the civil rights group. “The fundamental right to vote is one of the most precious rights we Pennsylvanians enjoy, and it will take more than a minor paperwork error to take it away.”
In the 2020 election, this key battleground state was decided by fewer than 82,000 votes, with President Joe Biden defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.
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