The Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated an appeals court decision that required Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots even if there is no date on the envelope.
- "The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot," wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, siding with David Ritter, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a judgeship.
Previous Ruling
- The Supreme Court denied Ritter's attempt to block the counting of ballots that lacked dates
- Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
- Alito had written that the lower court's ruling could well affect the outcome of the elections this year as voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 in midterms in which Republicans are seeking to seize control of Congress from the Democrats.
Law
- The 3rd Circuit ruled that invalidating the updated ballots would violate a provision of a landmark 1964 federal law called the Civil Rights Act aimed at ensuring that minor ballot errors do not deny someone the right to vote.
- Several Republican-led states have enacted tougher voting rules, including for mail-in ballots, following the 2020 election.
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