Democracy in America
Trump, Republicans push swing-state courts to reject mail-in ballots
The GOP legal strategy in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania uses technicalities to throw out otherwise valid votes, critics say.


Election workers handle mail-in ballots in a secure room at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Nov. 3, 2020. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

By Colby Itkowitz
Updated September 10, 2024 at 4:57 p.m. EDT | Published September 10, 2024 at 6:03 a.m. EDT

When Pennsylvanians vote by mail, they must seal their ballots inside secrecy envelopes and place them into outer envelopes that they are required to sign and date. The ballots must be received before 8 p.m. on Election Day. Local election workers track when ballots arrive.

In recent elections, if a voter misdated or forgot to date the outside envelope, their otherwise valid ballot would be thrown out. But last month, a panel of state judges ruled that not counting those votes over “meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors” infringed on the state’s constitutional right to vote.

Now, with weeks to go until Pennsylvanians start voting, Republicans are pressing for the state Supreme Court to overturn that decision, arguing that mail-in ballots without a proper date should be tossed out.

The effort is part of a nationwide legal campaign that the GOP has waged since 2020 to reject mail-in ballots. Republicans say the litigation is aimed at enforcement of election law, down to the letter. But critics see a strategy that has nothing to do with election integrity and everything to do with disqualifying voters who cast ballots by mail, an overwhelming majority of whom support Democrats.

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CORRECTION

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that former president Donald Trump had threatened “long term jail times” for those he said were responsible for "cheating" in the 2024 election. Trump said “long term prison sentences.” The article has been corrected.

By Colby Itkowitz
Colby Itkowitz is a national politics reporter for The Washington Post. She joined the Post in March 2014. Before coming to the Post, Colby was the D.C. correspondent for The (Allentown) Morning Call and a reporter at Congressional Quarterly.follow on X @colbyitkowitz