Shapiro hails Pennsylvania court ruling protecting mail ballots

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) hailed a Friday state court ruling that he says will protect Keystone State residents’ right to vote.

The Commonwealth Court ruling ended a requirement that every mail-in ballot in the state require a handwritten date on the envelope. Under the initial rule, any envelope containing a ballot without a clear date would not be counted, The Associated Press reported.

Judge Ellen Ceisler, in the majority opinion, wrote that the “refusal to count undated or incorrectly dated but timely mail ballots submitted by otherwise eligible voters because of meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors violates the fundamental right to vote.”

Shapiro, previously a contender to be Vice President Harris’s running mate, echoed Ceisler’s comments while praising the ruling.

“This decision is a victory for Pennsylvanians’ fundamental right to vote,” he wrote Friday on social media platform X.

“Commonwealth Court got it right: an eligible voter’s minor error of forgetting to date or misdating a ballot envelope cannot be cause for disenfranchisement,” the governor continued. ” I’ll always protect your right to a free, secure, and fair election.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania also praised the ruling as a victory.

“Today’s decision is a win for voters and democracy,” the group’s executive director Mike Lee wrote in a statement. “No one should lose their vote over a simple human error that has no relevance to whether or not the ballot was received on time.”

“This decision preserves the votes of thousands of voters who make this mistake in every election, without undemocratic, punitive enforcement by the counties,” the group added.

Pennsylvania is one of several hotly contested swing states during this year’s election cycle.

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s election tracker currently shows Harris with a 1.2-point lead — 48.6 percent to 47.4 percent — over former President Trump in the Keystone State. She passed Trump in favorability in early August shortly after rising to the top of the Democratic ticket after President Biden dropped out of the race.