Already interfering in the election:
When Pennsylvanians vote by mail, they must seal their ballots inside secrecy envelopes and place them into outer envelopes that they are required to sign and date. The ballots must be received before 8 p.m. on Election Day. Local election workers track when ballots arrive.
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In recent elections, if a voter misdated or forgot to date the outside envelope, their otherwise valid ballot would be thrown out. But last month, a panel of state judges ruled that not counting those votes over “meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors” infringed on the state’s constitutional right to vote.
Now, with weeks to go until Pennsylvanians start voting, Republicans are pressing for the state Supreme Court to overturn that decision, arguing that mail-in ballots without a proper date should be tossed out.
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The effort is part of a nationwide legal campaign that the GOP has waged since 2020 to reject mail-in ballots. Republicans say the litigation is aimed at enforcement of election law, down to the letter. But critics see a strategy that has nothing to do with election integrity and everything to do with disqualifying voters who cast ballots by mail, an overwhelming majority of whom support Democrats.
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“If you talk to election officials, we will tell you that date is utterly meaningless. It serves no purpose to our operations for administering elections,” said Forrest Lehman, director of elections in Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, a GOP-leaning area in the center of the state. “I got into this business to count ballots, not to look for excuses to throw them out.”
Republicans have engaged in similar legal battles to throw out mail-in ballots over technical reasons in other states, including those, like Pennsylvania, considered crucial to the outcome of the presidential vote.
In Wisconsin, where voters are required to have witnesses sign their mail-in ballots, Republicans unsuccessfully sought to have votes rejected if the witness fills in an incomplete address.
In North Carolina, Republicans are suing to throw out ballots if the inner secrecy envelope isn’t fully sealed.
In Georgia, Republicans have fought to have ballots thrown out if voters fail to accurately write their birth date on the outer envelope.
In Michigan, Republicans sued for stricter enforcement of signature matches on mail-in ballots.
And in Nevada, which allows mail-in ballots to be received up to three days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before that day, Republicans sued in May not to count late-arriving votes.
In most cases, GOP lawyers point to specific rules or laws that they say should invalidate the ballots. But sometimes they are blunt about the political motives.
In an April filing in a Minnesota case over mail voting requirements, Republicans cited data showing that mail-in votes were more likely to be cast for Democrats. As a result, the GOP brief concluded, it was “reasonable” for the party to “fear that if duly enacted restrictions of voting by mail go unenforced, the resulting increase in mail ballots may impair their prospects for electoral success.”
Claire Zunk, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee’s voting and elections division, said “signature and date requirements are commonsense and commonplace, and this should be no different for voting. Defending the law and protecting critical mail ballot safeguards gives voters confidence that ballots will be counted in accordance with the law.”
Democrats and voting rights advocates describe Republican efforts to discredit mail-in voting and to throw out ballots on technical grounds as an attempt to suppress votes, potentially thousands, in battleground states where the presidential election is expected to be extremely close. Pennsylvania is pivotal to Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances of beating GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in November. The state chose Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than a percentage point and then Joe Biden over Trump in 2020 by only a slightly larger margin.
“It is a cynical attempt to limit the number of votes and limit the ability of certain voters to participate in the electoral process,” said Uzoma Nkwonta, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, which represents the Harris campaign. “And I don’t think there’s any attempt to hide that anymore.”
When Pennsylvanians vote by mail, they must seal their ballots inside secrecy envelopes and place them into outer envelopes that they are required to sign and date. The ballots must be received before 8 p.m. on Election Day. Local election workers track when ballots arrive.
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.
In recent elections, if a voter misdated or forgot to date the outside envelope, their otherwise valid ballot would be thrown out. But last month, a panel of state judges ruled that not counting those votes over “meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors” infringed on the state’s constitutional right to vote.
Now, with weeks to go until Pennsylvanians start voting, Republicans are pressing for the state Supreme Court to overturn that decision, arguing that mail-in ballots without a proper date should be tossed out.
ADVERTISING
The effort is part of a nationwide legal campaign that the GOP has waged since 2020 to reject mail-in ballots. Republicans say the litigation is aimed at enforcement of election law, down to the letter. But critics see a strategy that has nothing to do with election integrity and everything to do with disqualifying voters who cast ballots by mail, an overwhelming majority of whom support Democrats.
🏛️
Follow Politics
“If you talk to election officials, we will tell you that date is utterly meaningless. It serves no purpose to our operations for administering elections,” said Forrest Lehman, director of elections in Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, a GOP-leaning area in the center of the state. “I got into this business to count ballots, not to look for excuses to throw them out.”
Republicans have engaged in similar legal battles to throw out mail-in ballots over technical reasons in other states, including those, like Pennsylvania, considered crucial to the outcome of the presidential vote.
In Wisconsin, where voters are required to have witnesses sign their mail-in ballots, Republicans unsuccessfully sought to have votes rejected if the witness fills in an incomplete address.
In North Carolina, Republicans are suing to throw out ballots if the inner secrecy envelope isn’t fully sealed.
In Georgia, Republicans have fought to have ballots thrown out if voters fail to accurately write their birth date on the outer envelope.
In Michigan, Republicans sued for stricter enforcement of signature matches on mail-in ballots.
And in Nevada, which allows mail-in ballots to be received up to three days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before that day, Republicans sued in May not to count late-arriving votes.
In most cases, GOP lawyers point to specific rules or laws that they say should invalidate the ballots. But sometimes they are blunt about the political motives.
In an April filing in a Minnesota case over mail voting requirements, Republicans cited data showing that mail-in votes were more likely to be cast for Democrats. As a result, the GOP brief concluded, it was “reasonable” for the party to “fear that if duly enacted restrictions of voting by mail go unenforced, the resulting increase in mail ballots may impair their prospects for electoral success.”
Claire Zunk, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee’s voting and elections division, said “signature and date requirements are commonsense and commonplace, and this should be no different for voting. Defending the law and protecting critical mail ballot safeguards gives voters confidence that ballots will be counted in accordance with the law.”
Democrats and voting rights advocates describe Republican efforts to discredit mail-in voting and to throw out ballots on technical grounds as an attempt to suppress votes, potentially thousands, in battleground states where the presidential election is expected to be extremely close. Pennsylvania is pivotal to Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances of beating GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in November. The state chose Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than a percentage point and then Joe Biden over Trump in 2020 by only a slightly larger margin.
“It is a cynical attempt to limit the number of votes and limit the ability of certain voters to participate in the electoral process,” said Uzoma Nkwonta, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, which represents the Harris campaign. “And I don’t think there’s any attempt to hide that anymore.”