A Philadelphia County elections staff member processes mail-in ballots on Election Day.
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
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Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
In a new ruling on Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court directed all of the state’s county election officials not to count mail-in ballots for this year’s general election that arrived on time but in envelopes without current dates handwritten by voters.
The order, prompted by a request from the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, comes after a long-running legal battle over what to do when absentee voters don’t follow an artifact of the state’s election rules that has drawn a tangle of lawsuits since Pennsylvania started allowing no-excuse voting by mail in 2020.
Despite similar orders by the state’s high court leading up to Election Day, some local election officials had decided to include what are often called “undated” or misdated ballots in their official tallies.
State law requires a handwritten date on the outer return envelope, but it’s an open question in the state courts whether rejecting ballots for not having one violates Pennsylvania’s constitution.
The RNC and David McCormick — the Republican whom the Associated Press has declared the winner of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race — filed a pair of lawsuits last week against county officials who counted undated or misdated ballots.
“No more excuses,” Michael Whatley, the RNC’s chair, said in a post on X after the court’s ruling. “Election officials in Bucks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, and other counties have absolutely no choice.”
The ruling comes after Pennsylvania’s top election official ordered an automatic statewide recount for the close U.S. Senate race. McCormick currently leads Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by over 17,000 votes, according to the latest unofficial returns compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of State.
The final results of the recount are expected on Nov. 27.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
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