As the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania headed for a recount, the Republican National Committee sued all 67 county boards of elections on Thursday to force voters to write a date on their mail-in ballots.
The issue of whether absentee ballots should be thrown out if the voter fails to write the date on the return envelope has been the subject of several court decisions this year alone, with the state Supreme Court overturning two lower court rulings that could have changed the status quo for several weeks before the presidential elections.
On Thursday, in a up-to-date filing with the Supreme Court, the RNC said at least three counties openly defied the Supreme Court’s decisions by voting to count ballots that were invalidated due to missing or incomplete dates.
“By counting undated and misdated absentee ballots in the 2024 general election, they repeatedly defy the Court’s orders,” the RNC lawsuit said, asking the court to immediately issue an injunction to prevent undated ballots from being included in the final districting count. That’s right.
The filing followed a similar lawsuit filed by Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick in a Bucks County court that alleged that Democratic county commissioners, who make up the majority of the board of elections, voted on Nov. 12 against the advice of the board’s general counsel for an 405 undated and erroneous count dated mail-in ballots.
“Dave McCormick won this election and is already attending Senate orientation meetings. Meanwhile, Democratic officials and fraud lawyers are assisting Bob Casey in his disgraceful attempt to take away a Senate seat he has clearly lost,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.
Casey’s campaign noted Thursday that the RNC’s position is the opposite of the position McCormick took in 2022 during the wrap-up of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate. His lawyers then demanded that the undated ballots be counted as part of the total. Ultimately, he lost the primary election to Mehmet Oz.
“David McCormick’s hypocritical U-turn on undated mail-in ballots is further evidence of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters as counties continue to count votes in this razor-thin election,” Casey’s campaign manager, Tiernan, said in a statement Donohue. “Senator Casey continues to be a priority to ensure that the voices of Pennsylvanians are heard as we move forward in our democratic process.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt announced Wednesday that the difference between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and McCormick was within the 0.5% margin that triggers an automatic recount under state law.
McCormick has 48.93% of the vote and Casey has 48.5%, according to unofficial results, Schmidt said, for a 0.43% lead. Schmidt’s office estimated the recount would cost taxpayers more than $1 million.
The issue of the validity of absentee ballots with missing or incorrect dates has been the subject of court cases in every election since 2020, when Pennsylvania’s Act 77 first allowed no-excuse absentee voting.
A Commonwealth Court panel ruled in September that the dating requirement violated the Pennsylvania Constitution because it provided no compelling reason for the government to violate the statute’s right to vote. The Supreme Court overturned that decision on a technicality because it only named the Philadelphia and Allegheny County boards of elections as defendants, without giving the other counties an opportunity to comment.
The Supreme Court denied a request by voting rights groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Public Interest Law Center to decide the issue before the election. In its judgment of October 5, the Supreme Court stated that the risk of confusing voters by changing voting rules just a month before the elections is too high.
In tardy October, a Commonwealth Court panel again ruled that the date requirement was unconstitutional in a case arising from the invalidation of ballots in two special elections for two House seats held exclusively in Philadelphia. The Supreme Court granted the Republican Party’s request to block the ruling’s application to the Nov. 5 election, saying the lower court’s decision was ill-timed.
Justice Kevin Brobson, in a robust opinion, noted that just weeks earlier the court had refused to make changes that would have altered vote-counting procedures during an election: “declaring that we will not tolerate significant changes to existing laws and procedures during an election.” ongoing elections, we said what we meant and we meant what we said.”
