Last week, the Pennsylvania state supreme court ruled that any mail-in ballots that did not have a correct date and signature on the envelope they were sent in would not be counted. Since that require.<\/b>
\nthe Pennsylvania state supreme court ruled that any mail-in ballots that did not have a correct date and signature on the envelope they were sent in would not be counted. Since that requirement is specifically listed in the state\u2019s election laws, it seemed like a no-brainer for the most part. But that hasn\u2019t stopped the Pennsylvania ACLU and other liberal groups from filing a lawsuit intended to throw out the ruling and force the ballots to be counted anyway. So is this yet another case of the \u201cvoter suppression\u201d that Stacey Abrams likes to go on and on about or just a simple example of following election laws as they are written? It may be too late to impact tomorrow\u2019s election, but the question will eventually have to be settled ahead of the next presidential cycle. (Yahoo News)
The ACLU\u2019s argument already seemed rather thin even before the state supreme court handed down its ruling. Calling the lack of a signature or a correct date on the ballot envelope a \u201ctrivial paperwork error\u201d opens the door to all manner of other exceptions. What if the return address on the envelope doesn\u2019t match the address of record for the voter? What if the ballot itself has errors on it? Should they all be tossed into the bin and tabulated anyway?
And these objections really aren\u2019t all that \u201ctrivial\u201d to begin with. Each state has its own rules for early voting and mail-in voting, most of which were massively expanded during the pandemic and are now being made permanent wherever Democrats can get away with doing so. Those rules include the dates when it is acceptable to send in or drop off a ballot.
Since there are no election officials present to determine when a ballot is dropped into a mailbox or a ballot drop box, the date on the envelope is the only way (such as it is) to determine if the ballot was \u201ccast\u201d in a legal fashion. The lack of a signature is also highly problematic. When you go to vote in person, you are always asked to sign in when they check your name off. Perhaps the lack of a signature on an envelope was an oversight, but it still suggests that the process was not properly completed.
Of course, there is one foolproof way to get around all of these questions and complications. Do you know how you avoid this problem entirely? You go to your polling place on election day, sign in, fill out your ballot and deposit it yourself. No fuss, no muss. No questions need to be asked. And you at least know that your ballot made it into the mix and didn\u2019t get mysteriously \u201clost\u201d along the way.
But that\u2019s apparently far too simple and rooted in common sense for some people. We\u2019re left to wonder why the ACLU and these other groups are so fired up and determined to see questionable and potentially spoiled or even fraudulently crafted ballots counted. Or perhaps I\u2019m just too cynical by nature.<\/p>\n