{"id":1688998,"date":"2022-10-14T09:16:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T13:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1688998"},"modified":"2022-10-14T09:17:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T13:17:52","slug":"the-same-day-scotus-squashes-pas-illegal-ballots-secretary-of-state-tells-counties-to-break-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-same-day-scotus-squashes-pas-illegal-ballots-secretary-of-state-tells-counties-to-break-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"The Same Day SCOTUS Squashes PA\u2019s Illegal Ballots, Secretary Of State Tells Counties To Break The Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-same-day-scotus-squashes-pas-illegal-ballots-secretary-of-state-tells-counties-to-break-the-law%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1688998&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In what should be a major win for election integrity advocates, the Supreme Court tossed out a lower court ruling that had permitted undated mail-in ballots to be counted against the law in Pennsylvania \u2014 but the Commonwealth\u2019s secretary of state has other ideas.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the court overruled the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which had said that not counting undated ballots would violate a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act regarding minor ballot errors.<\/p>\n<p>The 3rd\u00a0Circuit ruling had come in response to a challenge from David Ritter, who in 2021 lost his election to the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas to a Democrat by only five votes after 257 undated ballots were counted. Pennsylvania law, however, requires voters to date their mail-in ballots on their outer envelopes. The 3rd\u00a0Circuit determined this requirement was \u201cimmaterial\u201d to a person\u2019s voting eligibility.<\/p>\n<p>While in June the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/us-supreme-court-allows-counting-undated-mail-in-ballots-pennsylvania-2022-06-09\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">denied<\/a>\u00a0Ritter\u2019s appeal to block the 3rd\u00a0Circuit ruling \u2014 with Justice Samuel Alito writing in his dissent that the ruling \u201ccould well affect the outcome of elections this year\u201d \u2014 the Supreme Court on Tuesday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/search.aspx?filename=\/docket\/docketfiles\/html\/public\/22-30.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">vacated<\/a> the case, tossing the lower court\u2019s decision and thus ruling in favor of Ritter. While Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown\u00a0Jackson said\u00a0they would have denied Ritter\u2019s appeal and left the 3rd\u00a0Circuit ruling in place, the majority decision means the 3rd Circuit\u2019s ruling can no longer act as election precedent in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, the states under the jurisdiction of the lower court.<\/p>\n<p>But immediately after the court\u2019s decision was made public, Pennsylvania\u2019s Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.media.pa.gov\/Pages\/State-details.aspx?newsid=536\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">released<\/a>\u00a0a statement saying the court\u2019s ruling does not affect the decision of the 3rd\u00a0Circuit \u201cin any way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s order from the U.S. Supreme Court vacating the Third Circuit\u2019s decision on mootness grounds was not based on the merits of the issue and does not affect the prior decision of Commonwealth Court in any way,\u201d Chapman wrote. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This directive by Chapman will only result in more chaos and confusion for voters, poll workers, and election clerks, plus likely inconsistencies between how different localities handle erroneous ballots. Pennsylvania\u2019s mail-in ballots for this election cycle already contain wording that reads \u201ctoday\u2019s date required\u201d and clear instructions for voters to \u201csign and date\u201d their ballots.<\/p>\n<p>Mail-In Ballot Instructions<\/p>\n<p>This kind of blatant flouting of election law is nothing new in Pennsylvania. Back during the 2020 election, then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar issued <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/11\/12\/pennsylvania-judge-sides-with-trump-campaign-throwing-out-ballots-missing-id-deadline\/\">guidance that did not comport with Pennsylvania\u2019s election code<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of Chapman\u2019s statement, some of the Commonwealth\u2019s 67 counties will follow her directive while others will follow state law and clear ballot instructions, meaning the inconsistencies and irregularities that plagued the 2020 election show no signs of stopping.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution or statute or rule allows an unelected bureaucrat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTUS has ruled that undated mail-in ballots cannot be counted in Pennsylvania. But the Commonwealth\u2019s secretary of state has other ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1130,"featured_media":1897960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1688998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_finder_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/14\/the-same-day-scotus-squashes-pas-illegal-ballots-secretary-of-state-tells-counties-to-break-the-law\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-same-day-scotus-squashes-pas-illegal-ballots-secretary-of-state-tells-counties-to-break-the-law","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}