PA Supreme Court rules mail ballots must have correct date to be counted

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision on Friday, ruling that mail ballots must have the correct date on them to be counted.

Last month, a lower court ruled that the commonwealth cannot throw out mail-in ballots just because they have incorrect handwritten dates on the envelopes.

The decision was tossed out by Pennsylvania's highest court on Friday, after the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP appealed, arguing that not all of the counties were included as plaintiffs in the original lawsuit. The ruling was made on jurisdictional grounds, not the merits of the case.

“The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties,” the court wrote in its order Friday.

The ACLU and Public Interest Law Center argued the case on behalf of a voting rights groups coalition, claiming that the requirement to have a correct date on a mail-in ballot violates the state constitution.