HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (PNN) - September 14, 2024 - Pennsylvanians who vote by mail must write a proper date on their ballot envelopes for their votes to be counted, under a decision Friday from the state Supreme Court that could affect thousands of voters this November.

The decision voids an Aug. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling that enforcing the requirement on ballot dating violated voters’ rights under the state constitution. The Supreme Court’s 4–3 decision was based on whether the lower court had jurisdiction in the case, not on the merits of the underlying claim, meaning that the constitutional argument could be made again in court.

Republicans who appealed the lower court’s decision argued to the state Supreme Court last week that the petitioners failed to include all counties as parties to the case, among other claims. The original lawsuit, brought by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Public Interest Law Center on behalf of a coalition of voting rights groups, targeted the Department of State, Allegheny County and Philadelphia.

“The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties,” the Supreme Court wrote in its order Friday. The inclusion of Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt as a named party was not enough to give the Commonwealth Court jurisdiction in the case, the order said.

Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based election lawyer who was not part of this case but has represented Democrats in other lawsuits challenging the dating requirement, said that, barring another ruling, voters will need to write a date on their ballot return envelope in order for their ballots to be counted.

Republicans called the decision a “victory for election integrity” in a critical swing state.

“This is a huge win to protect the vote in Pennsylvania that will protect common sense mail ballot safeguards and help voters cast their ballots with confidence,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.

Justice David Wecht dissented with the majority and called for the Supreme Court to address the constitutional claims directly and quickly, given the fast-approaching election. The court should exercise its “King’s bench” authority to bypass the normal judicial process and have the parties submit briefs on the issue directly to the Supreme Court, Wecht said.

He was joined in his dissent by Chief Justice Debra Todd and Justice Christine Donohue.

Steve Loney, senior supervising attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said his group would continue its fight on behalf of the voting rights groups that brought the case.

A spokesman for the ACLU said the groups involved had not decided what their next move would be or whether to seek a direct ruling on the constitutional claim from the state Supreme Court.

Federal judges have gone back and forth over whether enforcing the requirement violated federal voting law. The current case is the first to directly challenge this requirement under the state constitution.

It’s the latest of several challenges to the dating requirement since the state implemented its mail voting law, Act 77, in 2020. Act 77 required voters to sign and date the outer return envelope of their mail ballots, and return the ballot in a secrecy envelope, in order for them to be counted.

Thousands of ballots are rejected each election for dating issues. During the April primary, counties rejected roughly 8,500 ballots, or 1.22% of those returned, for lacking a signature or date, or for being returned without a secrecy envelope, according to an analysis of Pennsylvania Department of State data. More than 4,400 of those were rejected for dating issues.

The ACLU and the Public Interest Law Center initiated the challenge earlier this summer on behalf of a coalition of civil rights groups, arguing that enforcing the date requirement violated the “free and equal elections” clause of the state constitution. That clause says that “no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling means the requirement is back in place, Bonin said.