U.S. Supreme Court Rules Mailed-In Ballots Without a Postmark Date Can NOT Be Counted.

originally posted by: matafuchs
a reply to: Sookiechacha

It is not about voter eligibility it is about if the vote is legal. These are 2 different things that many Progressives like to roll into one.

Hopefully you cant get through to her.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
LOL

Show me that order! Please!

I'll wait!

LOL

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
No it doesn't.
It clearly says:

“No person acting under color of law shall . . . deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper related to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.”
§10101(a)(2)(B).

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
The date has nothing to do with determining the voters' eligibility. It's "immaterial".

Since your big on the previous 3rd circuit ruling, did you even bother to read it'?

PDF link - SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21A772
DAVID RITTER v. LINDA MIGLIORI, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[June 9, 2022]

The statutory provision in question reads as follows:
“No person acting under color of law shall . . . deny
the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper
related to any application, registration, or other act
requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State State law to vote in such election.” §10101(a)(2)(B).

This provision has five elements: (1) the proscribed conduct must be engaged in by a person who is “acting under color of law”; (2) it must have the effect of “deny[ing]” an individual “the right to vote”; (3) this denial must be attributable to “an error or omission on [a] record or paper”; (4) the “record or paper” must be “related to [an] application, registration, or other act requisite to voting”; and (5) the error or omission must not be “material in determiningwhether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.” Ibid.`

The Third Circuit held that the failure to count mail-in ballots that did not include the date on which they were filled out constituted a violation of this provision, but the Third Circuit made little effort to explain how its interpretation can be reconciled with the language of the statute. In my view, however, it appears that elements 2 and 5 are clearly not met.

element 2. When a mail-in ballot is not counted because it was not filled out correctly, the voter is not denied “the right to vote.” Rather, that individual’s vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules for casting a ballot. “Casting a vote, whether by following the directions for using a voting machine or completing a paper ballot, requires compliance with certain rules.” Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021)
(slip op., at 16).

A registered voter who does not follow the rules may be unable to cast a vote for any number of reasons. A voter may go to the polling place on the wrong day or after the polls have closed. A voter may go to the wrong polling place and may not have time to reach the right place before it is too late. A voter who casts a mail-in ballot may send it to the wrong address. A State’s refusal to count the votes of these voters does not constitute a denial of “the right to vote.” Even the most permissive voting rules must contain some requirements, and the failure to follow those rules constitutes the forfeiture of the right to vote, not the denial of that right.

Element 5 weighs even more heavily against the Third Circuit’s interpretation. This element requires that the error or omission be “material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.” There is no reason why the requirements that must be met in order to register (and thus be “qualified”) to vote
should be the same as the requirements that must be met in order to cast a ballot that will be counted. Indeed, it would be silly to think otherwise. Think of the previously mentioned hypothetical voters whose votes were not counted because they did not follow the rules for casting a vote. None of the rules they violated—rules setting the date of an election, the location of the voter’s assigned polling place, the address to which a mail-in ballot must be sent—has anything to do with the requirements that must be met in order to establish eligibility to vote, and it would be absurd to judge the validity of voting rules based on whether they are material to eligibility.

Reference the "Materiality" of the date on envelopes -

But §10101(a)(2)(B) does not address that issue. It applies only to errors or omissions that are not material to the question whether a person is qualified to vote. It leaves it to the States to decide which voting rules should be mandatory.

As ive been saying.


When Scotus rendered the 3rd circuit ruling as moot and ordered it dismissed, it applied to the entire legal action. The legal system starts with the state "trial" courts, then state appeals court, the the state Supreme Court. From the start an appeal must be based on a defect in the trial courts judgement (usually a misinterpretation of the law or a civil rights violation). Once the state supreme court ruled, a person has the right to appeal it to the Federal Appeals Courts, which is what occurred in this case. The appeal at every step is the same case, from start to finis. When Scotus vacated the 3rd circuits ruling, it rolls down hill - From Scotus, to the Federal appeals district, down to the state level courts.

State Supreme Courts are not above the US Supreme Court. When Scotus tossed the 3rd Circuits ruling, by extension, it also tossed the state courts rulings, all the way back to the state "trial" court. When an appeals court or supreme court tosses a ruling, it applies to all courts that "touched" the case.

A court doesnt get to decide a dismissal / reversal / mootness / insert more legal terms here if a ruling by a higher court applies to them. Nor can people decide the Supreme Court ruling only applies to the Federal appeals court yet claim the State Courts are not affected.

Because this case deals with voting the Federal Courts are within their authority to get involved.

The moment Scotus stopped the 3rd Circuits ruling, it also meant that the mail in voting ruling was no longer in effect. That is the order from Scotus that mail in ballots missing information can not be counted.

U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Pennsylvania’s Mail-In Ballots Law


My question to you:

Did all the major news outlet somehow go stupid the day scotus made its decision? They all, correctly, reported the Scotus ruling in facts prevents PA from accepting mail in ballots missing required info. I hate the msm as much as everyone else but in this case they are correct.

Why are you not ok with PA election laws being enforced? Why are you so against the State Legislature drafting a law / new law / revised law to deal with the issue? Why must Democrats rely on the legal system to make the changes they want while ignoring the state legislature?

Also, Scotus threw the 3rd District decision on a vote of 7-2.

a reply to: Xcathdra

You are correct on a handwritten date, how ever Absentee ballots are also required to have either a postmark if they are mailed or a timestamp if they are brought to the County Election Office. This is to show that the ballot was completed in time for the election. If a ballot postmarked before the election is received after the election date, the ballot is still counted.

These are two separate items.

Now we get the curve ball. Anybody want to see how the Democrats are going to get around the United States Supreme Court?

ACLU releases letter showing concern about two voter issues in Allegheny Co.
www.cbsnews.com...

The ACLU has sent a letter to the Allegheny County Division of Elections. The letter states that there are two issues. The first one concerns what we have been discussing.

The first issue involves a printing error that saw an unknown number of mail-in ballots missing the voter declaration on the outer envelope sent to some voters in Allegheny County.

I'll take any and all bets that somewhere a Judge will rule that they have to accept all ballots because of this error.

My question is how does something like this happen? It is practically a given that something like this happens in even numbered years.

The second issue is the number of undeliverable ballots. The ACLU is whining as they do every election that Blacks might not be able to vote because they didn't get their ballot.

What makes this a joke is that Absentee Ballots are required to be requested every year. If the person requesting that ballot can't put the correct address on the request, that's on them. The ballots mentioned are ones that were NOT requested and shouldn't have been mailed in the first place.

Flash Back

Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots

Phony ballots

The ballot has no specific security features — like a stamp or a watermark — so the insider said he would just make his own ballots.

“I just put [the ballot] through the copy machine and it comes out the same way,” the insider said.

But the return envelopes are “more secure than the ballot. You could never recreate the envelope,” he said. So they had to be collected from real voters.

He would have his operatives fan out, going house to house, convincing voters to let them mail completed ballots on their behalf as a public service. The fraudster and his minions would then take the sealed envelopes home and hold them over boiling water.

“You have to steam it to loosen the glue,” said the insider.

He then would remove the real ballot, place the counterfeit ballot inside the signed certificate, and reseal the envelope.

“Five minutes per ballot tops,” said the insider.

The insider said he took care not to stuff the fake ballots into just a few public mailboxes, but sprinkle them around town. That way he avoided the attention that foiled a sloppy voter-fraud operation in a Paterson, NJ, city council race this year, where 900 ballots were found in just three mailboxes.

“If they had spread them in all different mailboxes, nothing would have happened,” the insider said.

Inside jobs

The tipster said sometimes postal employees are in on the scam. ......

a reply to: MetalThunder

Not the first time I've heard that.
In the 2020 election the County I live in had multiple UPS Stores listed as home addresses for mail in ballots. We also had several people over 120 years old on the voter rolls who actually "cast" a ballot. This was public information until people started point it out then it was removed from the County website.

a reply to: Xcathdra

The moment Scotus stopped the 3rd Circuits ruling, it also meant that the mail in voting ruling was no longer in effect. That is the order from Scotus that mail in ballots missing information can not be counted.

So in other words, you can't provide the SCOTUS ruling, that you claim orders Pennsylvania and any other states with such a requirement to reject all ballots whose return envelopes were either misdated or undated. You can't because it doesn't exist. There is no such order because SCOTUS didn't issue any such order. There is no precedent set on this issue and it's back in the courts with the RNC suit filed last Friday.

In a separate case, the state Supreme Court granted a request by the Republican National Committee, the state party and several voters who sued several days ago, asking it to clarify the issue of undated ballot envelopes.

The court agreed to fast-track consideration of the ballot envelopes issue, a matter that became complicated earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court deemed moot a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision saying that despite a provision in state law, the dates aren't mandatory. That means the case can’t be cited as precedent.

www.usnews.com...

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Read the article I posted about the ACLU questioning the Allegheny County Division of Elections. It's right there.
www.cbsnews.com...

The letter address two issues with mail-in ballots that the ACLU wants addressed.

The first issue involves a printing error that saw an unknown number of mail-in ballots missing the voter declaration on the outer envelope sent to some voters in Allegheny County.

Of course, mail-in ballots returned without a signed and dated voter declaration are considered ineligible and will not be counted.

a reply to: JIMC5499

That's about printing error concerns.

First, we understand that the Division of Elections is aware of
several instances in which voters received mail ballots missing the “voter
declaration” language on the outer envelope due to a printing error. As you
know, if a voter returns a mail ballot without signing the outer envelope,
that ballot cannot be counted. Accordingly, we are concerned that voters
who receive such mail ballots will return their ballots without realizing that
the outer envelope is missing the voter declaration language and that their
votes will not be counted.
Due to the serious nature of this issue, we ask that the Division of
Elections review the outer envelopes of all received mail ballots for the
2022 general election and contact every voter whose mail-in ballot they
have received and is missing the voter declaration language. These voters
should be offered an opportunity to either spoil their ballot and be issued a
new one or spoil their ballot and vote in person on November 8. We request
the Division of Elections contact its printer to ensure that all mail ballot
packets going forward have the proper declarations printed on them.
www.aclupa.org...

Also,

Of course, mail-in ballots returned without a signed and dated voter declaration are considered ineligible and will not be counted.

Of course mail-in ballots need to be accompanied by an identifying signature. That's "material" to determining the voter's eligibility. The question at hand in this thread is about return envelopes that are signed but not dated or are misdated. The courts already agreed that the date itself is not "material" in identifying the voters' eligibility.

Also,

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's high court on Friday ruled in favor of “ballot curing” in which some counties contact voters to correct errors in mail-in ballots and agreed to again consider whether mail-in ballots have to be counted even if they arrive with incorrect or missing handwritten dates on their outer envelopes.

news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: Sookiechacha

You just don't get it, do you. An incorrectly filled out ballot is invalid. That's it plain and simple. The reason that this "printing error" comes into it, is because that's where you SIGN and DATE the ballot. Under Pennsylvania law if it isn't signed or dated it is INVALID.

That envelope is supposed to stay with the ballot. It is the documentation that validates that there is a legitimate voter that cast that ballot.

Watch, that "printing error" will be used as an excuse. I can see it now. "Oh the evil Republicans are trying to invalidate the Black vote. We have to count all ballots, even the ones that are not filled out correctly."

The US Supreme Court ruling basically stated "Follow your laws." The Wolf Administration is saying "We don't have to."

By the way, if you looked at those envelopes from the 2020 election, the ones that were supposed to have stayed with the ballot, want to bet how many would have the same hand writing?

Take notice, the group who is protesting about having to follow the Law is the Democratic Party.

a reply to: JIMC5499

The printing errors are a new and separate issue from the one at hand. Sure, it's important, but it has nothing to do with the case we're discussing, which has nothing to do with misprinted ballots.

The Ritter case in question has to do with accompanying ballots from return envelope that were not misprinted, were signed but either misdated or the date is omitted and whether or not they can be licitly counted.

All this other stuff, printing errors, Gov Wolf's unrequested absentee ballot authority, who is eligible for mail-in absentee ballots, all those things are all separate issues from whether or not signed but misdated or undated ballots can be counted.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Are you really that ignorant?

The law states that improperly signed or improperly dated ballots are invalid. That's it plain and simple.

The ballots I mention that have a "printing error" are omitting the area where the signature and date are placed.

I do not believe for one millisecond that this is accidental. This is going to be used as an excuse to count improperly signed or dated ballots in the 2022 Election.

They don't know how many of these misprinted ballots have been sent out, if any. I'm willing to say that they are going to get tons of these back. Read the post about the "professional" election rigger. He states that the envelopes are the only secure part of the ballot. He had to get the envelopes to put his fake ballots in. Now they don't have to even do that. They can PRINT their own envelopes and put their fake ballots in them. If anybody complains, the evil Republicans are disenfranchising minority voters.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: Xcathdra

You are correct on a handwritten date, how ever Absentee ballots are also required to have either a postmark if they are mailed or a timestamp if they are brought to the County Election Office. This is to show that the ballot was completed in time for the election. If a ballot postmarked before the election is received after the election date, the ballot is still counted.

These are two separate items.

The problem with postmarks, according to the PA Sec States website, is postmarks (date/time stamp) are not acceptable under PA law.


PA Mail in voting requirements

Step 4:
calendar November 8
Return your voted ballot to the county election board. Absentee and Mail-in Ballots must be received by 8 pm on election day at your county election board. To ensure your ballot is received by the deadline, return the ballot as soon as possible.

* - You can mail your ballot.
* - Using the return envelope supplied with your ballot, make sure you use the proper postage (if needed) and that it arrives to your county election board by 8 pm on election day. Postmarks do not count. If your ballot is not received by the county election board by 8 pm on election day, it will not be counted
* - You can hand-deliver your ballot before 8 pm on election day to your:
county election office or other officially designated site.
Some counties are providing drop-boxes for mail ballots.

The issue was raised that PA election locations that deal with mail in voting perform a date / time stamp when they receive the ballots. This was partly the reason for the court(s) initial ruling(s) however they never bothered to change PA election laws to account for that.

However the issue with this is in bold above. Providing drop boxes for mail in ballots. There is no time / date stamp when a person uses the drop box (MI just got caught placing drop boxes and when the drop box was inspected immediately after placement it was found to contain ballots already filled out inside it).

I look for that incident to be used in legal filings in MI and most likely other states.

a reply to: Xcathdra

I thought that I had the postmark bit on good authority (a retired Judge who's a friend). If I'm wrong I do apologize.

Already they are starting it....🐸


BREAKING: Acting PA Secretary of State warns of ‘delays’ in counting midterm votes

a reply to: JIMC5499

Are you really that ignorant?

The law states that improperly signed or improperly dated ballots are invalid.

Obviously it isn't that easy, or this wouldn't have gone to the 3rd Circuit Court in the first place. It wouldn't have gotten SCOTUS' okay to count the ballots in question in June if it was that easy. And, the RNC wouldn't have filed a case last Friday, asking for clarification.

In a separate case, the state Supreme Court granted a request by the Republican National Committee, the state party and several voters who sued several days ago, asking it to clarify the issue of undated ballot envelopes.

A top state elections official emailed county officials this month to say a June state court decision found that “both Pennsylvania and federal law prohibit excluding legal votes because the voter omitted an irrelevant date on the ballot return envelope, and that decision remains good law.”

The justices in an unsigned order on Friday set out a compressed time schedule for the parties to file briefs early next week on whether the Republican groups and voters have legal standing to bring the case, whether the envelope dates are mandatory under state law and if so, if that would violate provisions of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.

www.usnews.com...

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
So in other words, you can't provide the SCOTUS ruling, that you claim orders Pennsylvania and any other states with such a requirement to reject all ballots whose return envelopes were either misdated or undated. You can't because it doesn't exist. There is no such order because SCOTUS didn't issue any such order. There is no precedent set on this issue and it's back in the courts with the RNC suit filed last Friday.

To make it easier for you to understand the moment Scotus tossed the case (from state courts to the 3rd circuit) PA law reverted back to before the rulings. Which means Mail in ballots missing the required info can NOT be counted. That is how it works. I can only explain how our legal system works so many times. Your grasping at straws remind me of Darrel Brooks behavior in the WI trial. He did the same thing, not know the law nor how the legal system works. His arguments were shot down by the judge, just as your comments are being shot down.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
The court agreed to fast-track consideration of the ballot envelopes issue, a matter that became complicated earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court deemed moot a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision saying that despite a provision in state law, the dates aren't mandatory. That means the case can’t be cited as precedent.
www.usnews.com...

No Scotus dismissed the cases, reverting PA law back to its original meaning - ballots and envelopes must be filled out completely and correctly to have them counted. The emergency motion to the PA Supreme Court was to have them force the Sec State comply with PA election law and is based on her refusal to accept what Scotus did.

Fact - Its NOT a violation of the VRA.
Fact - The VRA defers to state law.
Fact - Scotus's dismissal of the 3rd circuit affected all courts that touched the case, invalidating the previous rulings.
Fact - The moment Scotus did that PA law reverted back to its original intent.

Fact - Just because you do not understand how our legal system works doesn't make your case and only hurts your case. The actions by the PA Sec State, and Governor, are criminal and they need to be prosecuted and removed from their positions, just as the original Sec State was.

Fact - the 3rd circuits ruling from June explained Scotus's reasons for their dismissal, as was provided to you. The fact the ruling was 7-2 should also be noted.

a reply to: Xcathdra

You're just wrong.

In a separate case, the state Supreme Court granted a request by the Republican National Committee, the state party and several voters who sued several days ago, asking it to clarify the issue of undated ballot envelopes.

And...

The justices in an unsigned order on Friday set out a compressed time schedule for the parties to file briefs early next week on whether the Republican groups and voters have legal standing to bring the case, whether the envelope dates are mandatory under state law and if so, if that would violate provisions of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.

www.usnews.com...

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: Xcathdra

I thought that I had the postmark bit on good authority (a retired Judge who's a friend). If I'm wrong I do apologize.

Your good man and coming from a judge is pretty good authority so nothing to apologize for. This is one of those issues where PA election law needs to be looked at and reviewed, by all branches of the PA government, and include feedback of the citizens of the state. Sadly our government has completely lost the concept of a compromise. This country is NOT 100% Democrat nor 100% Republican and trying to legislate like it is is a big part of our problem.

As I already said some of the requirements of PA election laws dont really make sense, although im sure they did make sense when they were first adopted. Legislating from the bench, with all due respect to your friend, is also a problem and we can see that fully with the current PA mess.