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Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules incorrectly dated mail-in ballots cannot be counted

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that state election officials should not count mail-in and absentee ballots that arrive in undated or incorrectly dated envelopes, the Washington Times reports. Just days before the November 8 midterm elections, the Pennsylvania court’s decision is an important win for Republicans who filed suit in October to ensure incorrectly dated mail-in ballots are not counted, the Times noted.

A respondent in the case, Democratic Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman, had argued that voters who mistakenly wrote the wrong date, or no date, would be too easily disenfranchised, the Times said.

However, the coalition of Republican plaintiffs, including the Republican National Committee (RNC), the Pennsylvania Republican Party, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued that Pennsylvania state law provides that voters must correctly date their mail-in ballots, the Times reports. Accordingly, the Republican lawsuit requested that incorrectly dated ballots should be “segregated and preserved” instead of being counted.

In its ruling Tuesday, the state Supreme Court said: “We hereby direct that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes.”

The RNC has filed 75 lawsuits related to election integrity in 20 states this election cycle, the Times said.