You requested your absentee or no-excuse mail-in ballot from your local election office. It was delivered in a timely fashion and you completed casting your vote(s). You folded a placed the ballot in the secrecy envelope … you placed the secrecy envelope inside the larger envelope.
You signed and delivered your envelope on time – but, much to your unknowing chagrin – your ballot may not count.
Why?
Because Act 77 – the law permitting mail-in voting – states that if you do not sign and date below the declaration on the return envelope your ballot will not be counted.
Now, the Dave McCormick and Mehmet Oz campaigns will slug it out in court to determine if these ballots CAN count.
What do you think? We’d like to know.
Polls open until Thursday morning at 7 AM.
Reader Poll: Should Undated Mail-In Ballots Count?
- Yes. If the envelope is time-stamped, why does a handwritten date matter? (60%)
- No. Rules are rules. Envelopes must be signed and dated. (40%)
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16 Responses
If the law was that you need to date the envelop, then those undated should be disregarded. Don’t like it, the legislature can change the law for the next election cycle. Not the courts job to write new law.
Laws can be unconstitutional or unnecessary or at cross purposes with their intended goals.
The core principle is that votes are cast before the election is completed. Minor technical nonsense like filling in the date serve no legitimate voting integrity purpose.
There is no reason why the envelope should even have a date field that needs to be filled in. If it’s the right ballot in the envelope and it is post-marked before or on the election date, it should be counted, even if it’s received after the election date. Even the secrecy envelope is unnecessary and over-complicated the mail-in ballot rules.
Show me how the date on the envelope prevents fraud. If the ballot is received by Election Day, it was obviously completed timely.
Totally agree❗️What a dumb ass rule ❗️
Aren’t all of the requirements to sign and date or your ballot will be invalid written on the application? Yes. So if someone is without an excuse, it seems strange that anyone should try to still count it…unless they are ok with fraud.
It’s an unnecessary complication to begin with. When the ballots first started appearing in 2020, some people thought the date was their birthday. You can make a law that says you have to Pat your head and rub your belly when you turn in your ballot.
Date and signature inside is an anti-fraud measure. Those who want anti-fraud measures removed or ignored are looking to commit fraud.
You don’t date and sign the inside. We’re talking about the outside of the envelope. If you don’t understand the difference between inside and outside then you probably shouldn’t be in the discussion
The postmark covers the mail and the drop box is picked up at the deadline so why is the voter getting the right date so important? It isn’t.
Agree
There is no legitimate reason to put a date on the envelope. That is just to confuse people and provide a reason to nullify the vote.
GOP vote nullification trickery.
It is in the statute. Change the statute, don’t just ignore because you don’t like it.
The GOP won’t let us change the statute because they want this voter nullification.
Give the gems a majority in both Chambers and watch it get fixed
Typical democrat voter fraud
GQP any means necessary to win