Ritter v. Migliori
What's at Stake
Pennsylvania mail ballot voters successfully challenged a rule that would have invalidated their votes because of a meaningless paperwork error on the return envelope.
Summary
Ritter arose out of the disenfranchisement of 257 Lehigh County voters as a result of a trivial paperwork mistake on the return envelopes containing their mail ballots. The ballots at issue were excluded based on a direction in state law that mail-ballot voters “fill out, date and sign” a form declaration on the outer envelope used to return mail ballots. Plaintiff Voters, all indisputably eligible and registered to vote, signed the return envelope form, and timely returned their ballots, which were then date-stamped by election officials to confirm their timeliness. But the Plaintiffs omitted a handwritten date on the Return Envelopes containing their ballots, leading those ballots to be set aside.
No one disputed that this handwritten date on the return envelope form has no bearing on a voter’s eligibility or the timeliness of their vote. Indeed, voters who wrote a date in the wrong place on the Return Envelope, or wrote a date that was clearly incorrect, had their ballots counted. Any string of numbers was accepted, without regard to its accuracy.
Plaintiff voters sued, claiming that disenfranchising voters for failure to handwrite a date whose content did not matter violates a provision of the federal Civil Rights Act that prohibits denying “the right of any individual to vote in any election” based on an “error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.” 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a)(2)(B).
A trial court dismissed their case on procedural grounds, holding that voters lack a so-called “private right of action” to challenge their own disenfranchisement under the Materiality Provision.
Plaintiff Voters, represented by the ACLU and ACLU-PA, appealed, winning an emergency injunction and ultimately a unanimous decision from a panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that their votes must be counted. The court of appeals concluded that refusing to count Plaintiffs’ votes because they omitted an irrelevant handwritten date from the return envelope form violated the statute.
Ritter, a candidate for election in Lehigh County who had a narrow lead in the vote and didn’t want additional votes counted sought an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the 257 mail ballots from being counted. The Supreme Court, over the dissent of three justices, sided with the voters and denied the stay, allowing the appeals court’s decision to go into effect and the votes to be counted notwithstanding the immaterial omission of a handwritten date on the mail ballot the ballots were counted, and they changed the result of the contested judicial election.
Legal Documents
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10/11/2022
Judgment Vacating Third Circuit Judgment -
09/09/2022
Reply Brief for Petitioner in Support of Petition for Certiorari -
09/06/2022
Migliori Plaintiffs Brief in Opposition to Petition for Certiorari -
09/06/2022
Zac Cohen Brief in Opposition to Petition for Certiorari -
08/10/2022
Response in Support of Petition for Certiorari from LeHigh County -
07/07/2022
Petition for Certiorari -
06/01/2022
Ritter Reply In Support Application for Stay from Judgment -
05/31/2022
Zac Cohen Response in Opposition to Emergency Application for a Stay -
05/31/2022
Migliori Plaintiffs Opposition to Application for a Stay -
05/27/2022
Emergency Application for a Stay
Date Filed: 10/11/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 09/09/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 09/06/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 09/06/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 08/10/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 07/07/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 06/01/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 05/31/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 05/31/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 05/27/2022
Court: Supreme Court (U.S.)
Download Document-
05/07/2022
Opinion of the Court -
04/01/2022
Amicus Brief of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -
03/29/2022
Plaintiffs-Appellants' Brief -
03/19/2024
LeHigh County Response to Plaintiffs-Appellants' Emergency Motion to Stay Pending Apeal -
03/19/2022
Plaintiffs-Appellants' Emergency Motion for Injunctive Relief Pending Appeal -
03/19/2022
David Ritter's Response to Plaintiffs' Appellants Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal
Date Filed: 05/07/2022
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 04/01/2022
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 03/29/2022
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 03/19/2024
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 03/19/2022
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 03/19/2022
Court: Appeals Court (3d Cir.)
Download Document-
03/16/2022
Order Granting Summary Judgment -
02/25/2022
Plaintiffs' Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment -
02/25/2022
David Ritter's Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment -
02/25/2022
David Ritter's Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment -
02/22/2022
Zach Cohen's Joinder in Plaintiffs' Response to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment -
02/22/2022
David Ritter's Response to Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment -
02/18/2022
Amicus Brief of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Support of Plaintiffs -
02/11/2022
Motion to Intervene of Zac COhen -
02/11/2022
Motion for Summary Judgment of Migliori Plaintiffs (ACLU) -
02/11/2022
Motion for Summary Judgment of LeHigh County Board of Elections -
02/11/2022
Motion for Summary Judgment of David Ritter -
02/02/2022
Court Order Granting Ritter Intervention -
02/01/2022
Motion to Intervene of David Ritter -
01/31/2022
Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction or TRO -
01/31/2022
Memorandum in support of Preliminary Injunction -
01/31/2022
Complaint
Date Filed: 03/16/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/25/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/25/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/25/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/22/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/22/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/18/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/11/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/11/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/11/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/11/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/02/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 02/01/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 01/31/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 01/31/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
Download DocumentDate Filed: 01/31/2022
Court: District Court (E.D. Pa.)
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