Pennsylvania Top Court Gives GOP Win on Ballots Missing Date (1)

Pennsylvania’s highest court blocked the counting of mail-in ballots without a hand-written date on the envelope for next Tuesday’s presidential election, a victory for Republicans that could benefit Donald Trump.

An intermediate appeals court had said Wednesday that the state constitution requires the counting of those ballots. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Friday that ruling “is stayed and shall not be applied to the November 5, 2024 general election.”

The Republican National Committee had asked the high court to review the case, arguing the lower court’s ruling effectively changed voting rules too soon before Election Day and undermined election integrity.

“This is another big win for election integrity and Pennsylvania voters,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting critical ballot safeguards to ensure every ballot is cast and counted properly and will continue to fight across Pennsylvania to Protect the Vote.”

Pennsylvania has been at the center of the race for the White House between Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. The lawsuit mirrors legal battles from 2020, when Trump’s allies repeatedly sued over rules for mail-in ballots that were seen to favor Democrats.

Democrat Joe Biden received 76% of the mail vote four years ago, with Trump getting just 23%. Biden won the state by about 80,000 votes.

Of the 1.7 million Pennsylvanians who have already cast ballots through early voting, 56% are Democrats, and 33% are Republicans, according to state figures.

RNC Appeal

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in a recent ruling that it would “neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures” when the election is ongoing. The RNC said the lower appeals court violated that standard by blocking the date requirement.

Democratic challengers argued that thousands of votes in Pennsylvania are at risk of not being counted based on a rule unrelated to whether a ballot arrives on time or a voter is eligible, citing invalidated ballots in past elections. The intermediate appeals court agreed.

“Enforcement of the dating provisions has resulted in the arbitrary and baseless rejection of thousands of timely ballots, resulting in disenfranchisement in violation of the free and equal elections clause,” the lower court said in its earlier opinion that is now on hold.

The RNC argued in its Oct. 31 request to put the ruling on hold that the judges were wrong to find that the handwritten date requirement passed by state lawmakers restricts the “fundamental right to vote.”

“The General Assembly’s longstanding and commonsense date requirement no more implicates the fundamental right to vote than does requiring voters to show up to the polling station on a Tuesday,” the RNC said in the request.

(Updates with statement from RNC chairman.)

--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net;
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve Stroth

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