Election workers at the Allegheny County Election Division warehouse in Pittsburgh process ballots from the 2022 Pennsylvania primary on June 1, 2022.
AP file photo
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Here we go again.
In 2020, the question of dates became a major part of the ballot counting process.
When mail-in ballots were sent in by Pennsylvania voters, they had to be placed in a security envelope. That envelope was then put inside another envelope for mailing. It was part of an effort to make the ballot itself safe, but it prompted problems when signatures or dates weren’t included everywhere they needed to be.
Aside from the presidential race that held the nation’s focus, there were important lower-level races to consider. Pennsylvania’s 45th Senate District battle between incumbent Democrat Jim Brewster and Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli wasn’t settled until after other legislators were already sworn in. Why? Because the district straddles Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, and the two election boards were interpreting the rules in different ways.
In 2022, the big races were the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania and the governorship. Once again, questions about what ballots to count and which to discard led to issues. In the primary, it took weeks to decide whether David McCormick or Dr. Mehmet Oz would be the Republican nominee. McCormick conceded and Oz ran — and lost.
And in the end, the question always seems to be decided by the courts. After repeated roller coaster trips through the state’s appeals courts, a final decision came in November 2022. The court was evenly divided by party after the death of the chief justice, leaving the issue in a middle ground purgatory. Undated or incorrectly dated outer envelope ballots would be segregated and preserved — but not counted.
Now, a year later, the issue is back as a federal court reverses course with a lawsuit filed days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision. Ballots submitted on time but without the handwritten date must be counted, U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter said.
The new suit by the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP, Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Make The Road Pennsylvania, and POWER Interfaith claims not counting the votes is a civil rights violation.
It’s a good argument. Many petty hurdles have been thrown in front of voters over the years to disenfranchise people who deserved their say.
But those who claim the rules need to be followed aren’t wrong either, and the rules say to sign and date to make things official, just like a contract.
It’s an issue that needs to be settled permanently because people need to vote. You can’t change the rules in the middle of the process. People need to know what those rules are so they can play by them.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review