The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that any undated or incorrectly-dated absentee and mail-in ballots should not be counted, but that they should be set aside and retained.
The ruling from the state’s high court came after the Department of State issued a statement saying those ballots should be counted. The ruling came in a compressed timeline and will impact the counting of ballots in the upcoming general election, which is now less than a week away. The issue of hand-written dates on the exterior security envelopes has been a hot topic since the 2020 election cycle.
House speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican from Lancaster, and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff issued a joint statement, saying the “dating of important documents has been a critical tool in officiating the legality of documents for centuries.” They were happy that the request to set the incorrectly dated or undated ballots set aside, which was something Republican leaders had been asking for.
The Department of State also issued a statement saying that if a voter who has already mailed in their ballots thinks they might have made a mistake should contact their county elections board or call the department’s voter hotline at 1-877-VOTESPA.
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