Voting Rights Groups Respond to Pennsylvania Court Decision on Handwritten Date Requirements for Mail Ballots

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A panel of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court today ruled in favor of the Black Political Empowerment Project and other nonpartisan community organizations in their case seeking to end the disqualification of mail-in ballots with trivial errors on the external envelopes.

The groups, represented by the ACLU of Pennsylvania, American Civil Liberties Union, Public Interest Law Center, and the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, argued that disqualifying the ballots violated voters’ fundamental right to vote in free and equal elections as protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The following can be attributed to Brent Landau, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center:

“This decision has strengthened the right to vote in Pennsylvania. Mail ballots will no longer be rejected because of a meaningless requirement to fill out a date that isn’t used for anything. As the birthplace of modern democracy, Pennsylvania has a long tradition of free and equal elections, and today’s decision adds to that legacy.”

ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Mike Lee made the following statement:

“Today’s decision is a win for voters and democracy. No one should lose their vote over a simple human error that has no relevance to whether or not the ballot was received on time. This decision preserves the votes of thousands of voters who make this mistake in every election, without undemocratic, punitive enforcement by the counties.”

Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, had this reaction:

“This ruling is a huge victory for Pennsylvania voters and for common sense. No one should lose their fundamental right to vote because of a meaningless paperwork mistake.”

A statewide coalition of 10 nonpartisan community organizations sued Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt and election officials in Philadelphia and Allegheny County in state court, demanding an end to the disqualification of mail-in ballots for inconsequential date errors on the declaration envelope.

The petitioners argued that this practice violates the fundamental right to vote in free and equal elections guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The ruling is online here.

Case background can be found here.