{"id":17267,"date":"2022-11-06T10:45:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-06T06:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/?p=17267"},"modified":"2022-11-09T10:29:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T06:29:06","slug":"pennsylvania-supreme-court-orders-election-officials-to-set-aside-undated-mail-in-ballots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-orders-election-officials-to-set-aside-undated-mail-in-ballots\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Supreme Court Orders Election Officials to Set Aside Undated Mail-In Ballots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered state election officials to set aside undated mail-in ballots ahead of next week\u2019s midterm elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court unanimously decided to set aside undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots. Under Pennsylvania law, mail-in voters are required to sign and date a declaration on the outer envelope. Despite this requirement, if undated or incorrectly dated ballots are turned in on time, they are eligible to be counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0election officials to \u201csegregate and preserve\u201d any incorrect or undated mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Pennsylvania county boards of elections are hereby ORDERED to refrain from counting any absentee and mail-in ballots received for the November 8, 2022 general election that are contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,\u201d the court wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hereby DIRECT that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,\u201d the court\u00a0added<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court opposes Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s administration, which recently advised county election officials to count undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court\u2019s decision comes after a Republican National Committee-led lawsuit against acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman and other state officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called the court\u2019s decision a \u201cmassive victory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDaniel said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ruling is a massive victory for Pennsylvania voters and the rule of law. Following an RNC, NRCC, and PAGOP lawsuit, Pennsylvania\u2019s Supreme Court has made clear that incorrectly dated and undated mail ballots can not be counted. Republicans went to court, and now Democrats and all counties have to follow the law: this is a milestone in Republicans\u2019 ongoing efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat in Pennsylvania and nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the court\u2019s decision is a victory for Republicans who have mounted legal challenges to election laws in various states, America First Policy Institute Center for Election Integrity chairman Ken Blackwell cautioned that the decision could have been a \u201ctactical retreat\u201d by the court\u2019s Democrats. Blackwell said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a big win for election integrity, leaving open the question as to how a partisan Democrat state supreme court could have voted for it. There was a question about whether this requirement could be severed from other items the Left cares about. Given that, I\u2019m raising my eyebrows as to whether this was a tactical retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The justices were split about whether the date requirement for mail-in ballots would violate the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says immaterial errors should not be used to prohibit voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Democrat justices would find the dating requirement to be a violation of federal law, while one Democrat and two Republican justices see no violation. The justices\u2019 opinions were not immediately released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the nearly 1.4 million mail-in ballots Pennsylvania voters requested, counties have reported receiving over 850,000 completed ballots, the Associated Press<\/em> reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case is Ball v. Chapman, <\/em>No. 102 MM 2022, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at\u00a0<\/em>jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or follow him on\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania\u2019s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered state election officials to set aside undated mail-in ballots ahead of next week\u2019s midterm elections. The court unanimously decided to set aside undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots. Under Pennsylvania law, mail-in voters are required to sign and date a declaration on the outer envelope. Despite this requirement, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17269,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions\/17269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geworld.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}