Pennsylvania's acting Secretary of State said county elections officials should count mail-in votes that arrive in exterior envelopes with inaccurate or nonexistent handwritten dates, despite a requirement in state law.
Pennsylvania's top-ranking state elections official said Tuesday a new U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding how rules for the state's mail-in ballots had been applied in a county judge election doesn't change her agency's guidance about counting them.
The new decision, Chapman said,"provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes." Chapman works in the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Joshua Voss, a lawyer who represents the losing judicial candidate in the Lehigh County race, Republican David Ritter, said in a phone call Tuesday he believes the effect of the new high court ruling is that state law goes back to where it had been.
He said it's possible that more litigation over the undated envelopes might occur if there is a close race in November and a candidate wants to seek a court review.
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