Republicans have filed an emergency appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, seeking instructions for counties to reject mail-in ballots that are not correctly dated by voters. This issue is part of a series of mail ballot rules currently under litigation in the battleground state.
The appeal comes after a lower court ruling on Wednesday, where the Republican National Committee challenged Philadelphia County for violating the state Constitution's Free and Fair elections clause. The county had rejected 69 ballots in a previous election due to being undated or incorrectly dated.
Voters are required to write the date on which they filled out the ballot. However, this requirement has led to the rejection of thousands of ballots in past elections, with voters sometimes inputting incorrect dates such as their birthdate or forgetting to date the ballot envelope altogether.
While voting rights groups viewed Wednesday's ruling as a step forward in their efforts to eliminate this requirement, they acknowledged that further proceedings would likely be necessary to determine its application to the upcoming November 5 election.
In their latest filing with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the RNC has urged the high court to either pause the ruling or issue an order clarifying that all county boards of elections must enforce the date requirement while the appeal process unfolds. They are seeking a ruling by Monday.
The potential impact on the number of affected ballots remains uncertain, as many counties allow voters opportunities to rectify mail ballot defects.
Additionally, Republicans have also petitioned the US Supreme Court to prevent the counting of provisional votes cast by individuals whose mail ballots were disqualified due to technical issues.
