Mandatory dates on Pa. ballot envelopes get new court ruling – By Associated Press (Trib Live) / Oct 11, 2022
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s top-ranking state elections official said Tuesday a new U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding how rules for the state’s mail-in ballots had been applied in a county judge election doesn’t change her agency’s guidance about counting them.
Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman said county elections officials should count mail-in votes that arrive in exterior envelopes with inaccurate or nonexistent handwritten dates, despite a requirement in state law.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Tuesday had declared as moot a decision in May by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had said mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope had to be counted in a 2021 Pennsylvania judge race.
Chapman issued a statement saying the high court decision did not affect a separate, previous ruling by state Commonwealth Court in favor of counting ballots without properly dated exterior envelopes.
