Federal Court Rules PA's Date Requirement For Mail-In Ballots Violates First and 14th Amendments
A federal court has found that Pennsylvania’s date requirement for mail-in ballots violates both the First and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution.
The decision by District Judge Susan Baxter, an appointee of President Donald Trump, means that the Commonwealth’s 67 counties cannot reject undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots.
In November 2022, two citizens – Bette Eakin and Ines Massella – along with Fetterman for PA, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, filed a suit in the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania.
The suit against Pennsylvania’s 67 county boards of elections challenged the “Date Instruction,” for mail-in ballots, which prevents counties from counting undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots.
The plaintiffs alleged that this policy violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act by denying an individual the right to vote for a reason that is not material to determining that individual’s eligibility. The plaintiffs argued that the date requirement is immaterial because “Pennsylvania law determines voter eligibility based on the date of the election—rather than the date of marking the ballot—[so] the Date Instruction provides no information about whether a voter is qualified.”
https://www.politicspa.com/federal-court-rules-pas-date-requirement-for-mail-in-ballots-violates-first-and-14th-amendments/141095/
= new reply since forum marked as read
