No one wants a repeat of the chaos surrounding the 2020 election. Now the courts are being forced to weigh in.
And a U.S. court handed down an election ruling that completely changes 2024.
Everyone remembers how unsure we all were after the 2020 election.
Donald Trump and many on the conservative side were calling foul about possible funny business taking place.
Meanwhile, the Left wanted everyone to shut up or be accused of being a traitor to the country.
What we can say is that election laws were changed incredibly fast to ostensibly account for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many are still concerned about how these laws could affect 2024, and it looks like the federal courts are trying to quell those fears.
A Pennsylvania federal appeals court has decided that mail-in ballots received without exact handwritten dates on the outside of envelopes are invalid, a decision that will have far-reaching consequences for this year’s elections in the critical battleground state.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided 2-1 on Wednesday, overturning a lower court ruling from November.
The lower court concluded that if mail-in ballots were received on time, they should be tallied even if the dates were incorrect. The court ruled that “trivial paperwork” errors disenfranchised voters and violated the Materiality Provision of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides that immaterial errors or omissions should not be used to restrict voting.
However, in Wednesday’s federal appeals court judgment, Judge Thomas Ambro stated that, under a state legislature-passed law, mail-in voters must write the date on their envelopes in order for their vote to be valid.
“The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously held this ballot-casting rule is mandatory; thus, failure to comply renders a ballot invalid under Pennsylvania law,” he said.
The Materiality Provision “only applies when the State is determining who may vote,” Ambro wrote.
According to a state legislation implemented in 2019, Pennsylvania voters must “fill out, date, and sign the declaration printed on [the] envelope” before returning their ballots.
Proponents of mail-in ballots believe that it makes voting more convenient and accessible to seniors and persons with disabilities. However, some Republicans believe the procedure presents severe election integrity concerns, while former President Donald Trump has slammed the system as “totally corrupt” and blamed it in part for his 2020 election defeat.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats vote by mail significantly more frequently than Republicans.
“This is a crucial victory for election integrity and voter confidence in the Keystone State and nationwide,” said Michael Whatley, chair of the Republican National Committee.
“Pennsylvanians deserve to feel confident in the security of their mail ballots, and this Third Circuit ruling roundly rejects unlawful left-wing attempts to count undated or incorrectly dated mail ballots.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represented groups and voters that challenged the date mandate, stated that voters will lose as a result of the decision.
“If this ruling stands, thousands of Pennsylvania voters could lose their vote over a meaningless paperwork error,” said Mike Lee, the executive director of the ACLU in Pennsylvania.
But it’s not meaningless, folks. It matters when you vote. You can’t send in a ballot in December for a November election.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
