Two federal lawsuits have been brought by voter advocacy groups, Democratic organizations and the Senate campaign of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) against Pennsylvania state and county election officials, seeking to revive a previously vacated argument that throwing out mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The suit follows the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s recent ruling that mail-in ballots may not be counted if they lack accurate handwritten dates on their outside envelopes.
The plaintiffs wrote in a 17-page filing that requiring the date on the envelope is immaterial and that it “has no bearing on a voter’s qualifications and serves no purpose other than to erect barriers to qualified voters exercising their fundamental constitutional right to vote.”
Any orders disqualifying ballots could end up affecting the election outcome in Pennsylvania, which former President Trump won in 2016 by less than 1% and President Biden won in 2020 by just over 1%.
