In a Thursday night ruling, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer sided with the campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick in a ballot-counting lawsuit.
Jubelirer ordered counties to count approximately 900 undated mail-in ballots in the total, but to keep them separated from other ballots should the decision be reversed.
“Having concluded that Petitioners have met the six essential prerequisites for obtaining a preliminary injunction, the Court will grant the Motion for Special Injunction as follows: the County Boards are directed, if they are not already doing so, to segregate the ballots that lack a dated exterior envelope, to canvass those ballots assuming there are no other deficiencies or irregularities that would require otherwise, and to provide two vote tallies to the Acting Secretary, one that includes the votes from those ballots without a dated exterior envelope and one that does not.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a stay on a 3rd Circuit Court decision from 2021 which permitted the counting of undated mail ballots that were received prior to the Election Night deadline. Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees the 3rd Circuit, issued an administrative stay until the Court can review the case. There is no timeline for the review with the Pennsylvania recount slated to end on Wednesday.
The McCormick campaign hopes that the decision will help it in closing the 902-vote difference in the race with celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
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2 Responses
This is about fundamental fairness and not being or being a Trumper. So the voter writes the wrong date or doesn’t write a date? So what?
And I’m sure every Trump worshipper will be losing their SH!T in 5… 4… 3…. 2…. But, the fact remains that the only important date is the postmark date or the stamped date received by the county election office. Judges, at least good ones, rule on honoring the intent of the voter and don’t worry about some arbitrary handwritten date that was put on the outside of the envelope.