Editorial: Hasn’t this undated ballot court ruling happened before?
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The point of a court ruling — particularly one from a top appeals court — is to set a precedent. The rulings are meant to take a complicated question and draw lines that make things easier to understand. They give a yes or a no. They say when something is permitted and when it isn’t. If the Legislature has created a game, the courts interpret and refine the rules.
Except sometimes, how they go about it changes nothing and makes you wonder why they bothered in the first place.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that mail-in or absentee ballots that are not enclosed in dated envelopes are not to be counted.
Feeling a sense of deja vu? Yes, this issue has been through the spin cycle of Pennsylvania courts repeatedly.
It shouldn’t be that hard. The rules say “do this” and, really, how hard is writing the date? Yet, it continues to come up as some counties wanted to toss out ballots and others wanted to count them. This is understandable, too, because rules are frequently more about intention than rigidity.
In 2020, it rose among the many challenges flying around the presidential election. It also held up the final decision on the 45th Pennsylvania Senate district, as Allegheny County wanted to count all votes and, in the other half of the district, Westmoreland County’s election board was more of a stickler for the rule book.
In 2022, it meant weeks of not knowing who the U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania would be, with Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick coming out of the May primary in a near photo finish with mail-in and absentee ballots still up in the air. The state Supreme Court finally ordered all undated ballots be counted June 2; McCormick conceded a day later.
The issue has hammered against the various levels of court over and over like waves crashing on rocks. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in May that the dates weren’t necessary, but, in October, the U.S. Supreme Court turned around and said that was moot but the court was also “likely wrong.”
So why couldn’t a final decision that said “OK, this is how it’s going to be” have come before now? More than 850,000 mail-in ballots have already been submitted. About 1.4 million were requested.
It isn’t that there was ever a right or wrong answer to this question. It isn’t an issue of hardship, but consistency. It was always that there needed to be a one-size-fits-all decision, and there was no reason that couldn’t have been done before the general election ballots were mailed.
It would be wonderful to believe this is the last time this issue will come up. The court has made its ruling. Date your ballot when you send it. Let that be the end of it.
But we have lived through this a couple of times already. It seems unlikely this won’t be deja vu all over again.