A Mail-Vote Time Bomb in Pennsylvania

The divided government has prevented Pennsylvania from fundamentally updating its voting laws since the 2020 election mess, and it will return to the roulette wheel in November. Imagine if control of the Senate were to drop. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, with a judge asked to decide whether undated mail-in ballots should be counted.

Last week, the Supreme Court cleared the decks for that possibility. The story begins with a Pennsylvania judicial election from 2021. Republican David Ritter led with 71 votes, but there were 257 ballots by mail that voters did not handwrite. The Pennsylvania Judiciary has held that dating is mandatory, because the law requires voters to “fill in, date, and sign.”