A little history, John: During the 2022 midterms, more than one million Pennsylvania voters dropped their ballots in the mail, well in time for them to be counted by Election Day. But several thousand of them were rejected without notice, due to errors with how they dated the hand-written field on the envelope in addition to the date they wrote on the ballot itself.
Yes, to answer the obvious question: PA makes you date the ballot twice. Why? So that people make simple mistakes and give partisans an excuse to toss their ballot. From a news article on the case:
"Pennsylvania voting law requires residents who vote-by-mail to hand write the date they filled out and dropped their ballot in the mailbox on the outside of the envelope. The issue has become a federal case with Republicans and voter advocates asking the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether Pennsylvania voters must write accurate mailing dates for their ballots to be accepted - even when the ballot arrives by deadline. "
Opponents of voting rights are trying to get ballots tossed for envelopes with missing or illegible dates on the outside, regardless of how correct things are inside on the ballot itself.
Why is this important? Well, in 2022, one candidate for U.S. Senate received more than 700,000 mailed-in votes than his opponent. That candidate won by less than 300,000 votes, a 5% margin. Several thousand ballots being tossed in a close election this fall could easily swing Pennsylvania's 19 Electoral College votes from one side to the other.
The danger is clear, John. Help defend mail-in ballots with $25 or whatever you can right now and make every vote count >>
