Court Upholds Decision Rejecting Undated Mail Ballots In Pennsylvania

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a request from left-wing groups seeking a rehearing of a ruling that invalidated thousands of undated or incorrectly dated ballots from the 2020 election. A three-judge panel upheld a state law that deems ballots without proper dates as invalid in a 2-1 decision back in March. Despite appeals from left-wing organizations, the court refused to review the decision, dealing a blow to Democrat operative Marc Elias and his group who supported the lawsuit against the state law. This decision has been a significant setback for Elias, who considered the case crucial leading up to the 2024 election. Pennsylvania’s universal mail-in balloting law requires voters to date and sign the envelope before returning their ballot, a requirement that was not met by numerous ballots in previous elections. The court ruled that these ballots did not comply with the law and should be discarded. The Materiality Provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents voters from being denied their right to vote due to non-material issues such as missing dates, was brought up in previous decisions but was determined not applicable in this case. Republican organizations had appealed previous rulings that allowed ballots with missing or incorrect dates to be counted, leading to the overturning of these decisions by the 3rd Circuit panel. Judge Thomas Ambra explained that the Materiality Provision only applies when the state is determining who may vote, not how a voter must cast their ballot for it to be valid. This ruling has upheld the state law’s requirement for properly dated ballots in Pennsylvania.