Election integrity unsurprisingly has taken center stage during the 2024 elections, after some quiestioned how ballots were handled in the 2022 midterms and 2020. Readers might recall that the U.S. Supreme Court most recently weighed in on the commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot rules in 2022.
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Read related: Supreme Court Overturns Controversial Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Ruling By Lower Courts
In September, I pointed back to that decision in a story about new legal wranglings over mail ballots–this time, over incomplete or misdated mail-in envelopes:
Courts ended up striking down those revised laws, and now we have news of a massive win for election integrity on mail-in ballots by the state Supreme Court….
The post reads:
This is a MASSIVE win that will have major implications in the most important swing state in 2024.
The PA Supreme Court has a 5-2 liberal majority.
Yet they just ruled 4-3 that it’s illegal to count misdated mail in ballots, overturning decisions made by liberal lower courts.
BREAKING: Pennsylvania Court Ruling a Massive Election Integrity Win on Mail-In Ballots
The case, filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Keystone state’s Republican Party on behalf of the election board, was a massive win to keep elections fair.
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But the case took two steps back this week, when an appeals court reversed course, stating in a 3-2 ruling on Wednesday that the ballots must be accepted:
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A divided Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Wednesday that the envelopes voters use to send in mail ballots do not need to have been accurately hand-dated, weighing in after the state Supreme Court sidestepped the issue and six days before the end of voting in the presidential election.
The 3-2 decision by Commonwealth Court upheld a Philadelphia judge’s ruling that 69 mail ballots should be counted in a pair of single-candidate state House of Representatives special elections held in September.
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The majority opinion by Judge Ellen Ceisler said the envelope dating rules “restrict the right to have one’s vote counted in the special election to only those voters who correctly handwrite the date on their mail ballots and effectively deny the right to all other qualified electors who sought to exercise the franchise by mail in a timely manner but made minor mistakes or omissions.”
Republicans put in an immediate appeal to the state Supreme Court. And on Friday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stayed the appellate court’s ruling:
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The post continued:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just stayed that ruling and put the date requirement back into effect.
This makes it harder for Democrats to cheat.
Trump’s legal team is winning key cases all over America.
via the AP:
….[T]he GOP….claimed victory in a decision by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. That court rejected a last-ditch effort by voting rights advocates to ensure that mail-in ballots that lack an accurate, handwritten date on the exterior envelope will still count in this year’s presidential election.
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As of Thursday, about 9,000 ballots out of more than 1.6 million returned have arrived at elections offices around Pennsylvania lacking a secrecy envelope, a signature or a handwritten date, according to state records.
You can find the full opinion here.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley has released a statement on the court ruling:
“This is another big win for election integrity and Pennsylvania voters. For the fifth time, we have successfully defended the state’s dated ballot requirement. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the law, and the dated ballot requirement will be in effect for this election. Democrats have repeatedly tried to eliminate this important ballot safeguard, and we have stopped them each time. We are committed to protecting critical ballot safeguards to ensure every ballot is cast and counted properly and will continue to fight across Pennsylvania to Protect the Vote.”
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As Mike Davis from the Article III Project, which “support[s] constitutionalist judges, fight radical assaults on judicial independence,” and “fight[s] lawfare and for election integrity,” according to the group’s X bio, noted in his tweet above, this win by the GOP and Team Trump “makes it harder for Democrats to cheat” on Nov. 5. Keep it up!
This is a developing story, and RedState will provide updates as warranted.
Read More: Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Requests Still Heavily Favor Democrats—Turnout Will Be Key