(Liberty Bell) – Legal experts have come out and revealed that Pennsylvania’s move to count undated mail-in ballots, which the local GOP recently sued the state over just last Sunday evening, could end up causing significant political turmoil around the upcoming 2022 midterm elections.
The Daily Caller stated, “The Pennsylvania State Department under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf released guidance in May calling for counting mail-in ballots without a handwritten date on their return envelopes, in light of the recent Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that mail-in ballots lacking a handwritten date be counted in a local county judge election. An updated version of that guidance ahead of the midterm elections was sent out Sept. 26.”
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation, is predicting a “heck of a mess” if current Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman’s actions end up poisoning the election.
“Then what the court would want to look at is, well how many ballots were counted illegally under the statute and under these court rulings, and were those less than or more than the margin of error,” Spakovsky commented in a statement given to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
He then made a case that election officials defying the law will hurt voter confidence in the election process. And to be honest, the average person’s confidence in our election system was already pretty low. Many have already felt that their vote doesn’t matter and their voices aren’t being heard. All of the evidence that has emerged pointing toward voter fraud has done nothing to assuage those fears.
“A Sunday Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican Party of Pennsylvania lawsuit filed in the state’s Supreme Court says the department’s guidance violates state law requiring ballot dating along with a high court opinion,” the Daily Caller reported.
“Pennsylvania Democrats have a history of election integrity failures and Pennsylvanians deserve better: this lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State,” the statement from Republican leaders stated.
The @GOP, @NRCC, and @PAGOP are suing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
As the Supreme Court has made clear, undated mail-in ballots should not be counted. (1/2)
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) October 17, 2022
The highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, found that the 3rd Circuit Court’s ruling issued earlier in the month was moot. Chapman then made the claim that the ruling from the Supreme Court didn’t change a state Commonwealth Court ruling that supported the counting of ballots with outer envelopes that did not have the proper date.
“It provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes,” she remarked, weighing in on the Supreme Court’s decision.
Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was thrilled by the circuit court decision the very day it was announced.
Reggie Shuford who works for the ACLU in Pennsylvania noted that the decision vindicated Leigh County voters “who would have been disenfranchised for a simple mistake on their ballots.”
“A state elections official told county officials via email that a June court decision determined that ‘both Pennsylvania and federal law prohibit excluding legal votes because the voter omitted an irrelevant date on the ballot return envelope, and that decision remains good law,’ the AP reported. Democrats have contended that counties are supposed to postmark and time-stamp mail-in ballots, making the handwritten dating rule useless,” the Daily Caller said.
Jason Snead, Executive Director of the Honest Elections Project, went on to say that undated ballots could end up playing a significant role in the midterm Senate race between Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman if the race is close, as the undated ballots could play a significant role in determining the winner.
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