The organization filed a federal lawsuit after Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ordered counties to refrain from counting ballots without dates on the return envelopes.
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Bill Dalessandro, background, and William Mumbauer loaded machines destined for polling sites on Wednesday in Bucks County, Pa.
The N.A.A.C.P. and several other voting rights groups sued Pennsylvania election officials on Friday in federal court as part of an 11th-hour effort to get them to accept mail-in ballots that are received on time but are not properly dated.
The step came three days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered counties in the battleground state to refrain from counting mail-in ballots that lack a written date on their outer envelope, siding with Republicans in a matter that could have national implications on Nov. 8.
The Republican National Committee and several other party-aligned groups had filed a lawsuit in October to stop undated ballots from being counted, citing a state law that requires voters to write the date on the return envelope when sending it in.
But the plaintiffs in the voting-rights coalition contend that rejecting ballots based on what they see as an immaterial matter violates the voting protections in the federal Civil Rights Act.
“Defendants’ failure to count timely-submitted mail-in ballots based solely on a missing or incorrect date on the return envelope will disenfranchise potentially thousands of voters,” the groups wrote in their 26-page filing on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
- Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.
- State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.
- Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.
- Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.
Their lawsuit named as a defendant Leigh M. Chapman, a Democrat who is the acting secretary of the commonwealth and the state’s top election official, despite guidance she issued in September that said ballots without a date on them should be counted as long as they are returned on time.
Ms. Chapman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The lawsuit also named the election boards in all 67 Pennsylvania counties as defendants.
The R.N.C. is expecting to intervene in the matter, according to Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the group.
On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that noncompliant ballots should be set aside. It was the latest wrinkle in a protracted legal fight over undated ballots in Pennsylvania, where voters are set to decide pivotal contests for governor and the U.S. Senate.
But the six justices were split about whether their rejection violated the voting protections of the federal Civil Rights Act. Three Democrats on the elected court said that it did violate federal law, while a fourth Democrat, Kevin M. Dougherty, joined the court’s two Republicans in saying that it did not. (The court typically has seven members, but Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat, died in September.)
Pennsylvania is where two of the most closely watched elections in the country will be decided next week. In the governor’s race, Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general, faces State Senator Doug Mastriano, the right-wing, election-denying Republican nominee. And control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on the outcome of the contest between the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat.
The issue of undated ballots was a major point of contention in Dr. Oz’s primary in May, which was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes and prompted an automatic recount.
Dr. Oz had opposed the counting of about 850 undated ballots in that race. His opponent, David McCormick, sued to include the ballots, calling the date requirement irrelevant. He later conceded the race.
And last year, a Republican candidate who lost a judicial race in Lehigh County sued to stop undated ballots from being counted in that contest, a case that escalated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia ruled against that candidate, David Ritter. The Supreme Court said in June that election officials in Pennsylvania may count mailed ballots that are received by the cutoff date but not dated. But in early October, the Supreme Court vacated the appeals court ruling.
County election boards must receive mail-in ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day; otherwise, they won’t be counted.
Source: nytimes.com
