Pennsylvania court rules to disallow mail-in ballots with wrong dates

Pennsylvania’s highest court has ruled that mail-in ballots marked with the wrong date will not be counted, days before the US goes for mid-term elections on November 8.The ruling comes as a big win for the Republicans who have been fighting to eliminate ballots with incorrect information on them and had filed a case for the same.The issue of misinformation on the in-mail ballots gained momentum after a surge in the 2020 election caused by the pandemic.Republicans believed postal voting benefitted the Democrats, however, there has no been no official data to confirm the fear.The BBC reported that about 70 percent of the 1.4 million requests for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania this year come from Democrats, compared to 20 percent from Republicans. The mid-term elections in the US will take place on November 8 (Image: Getty Images)After the previous election, then-President Donald Trump condemned mail-in ballots as a ‘big scam’ and baselessly claimed that millions of ballots were sent from abroad as part of a ‘rigged’ election.The former President narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016 before losing by a slim margin in 2020, prompting some Republicans to claim the election was stolen because of ballot irregularities.The six members of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court said that they were evenly split on whether or not discarding ballots marked with incorrect dates violated the federal Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal to throw out ballots for minor reasons.It said that state election officials should “segregate and preserve” any ballots that were mailed in undated or incorrectly dated envelopes in case there was a further legal challenge.READ MORE: Just how difficult is the UK Citizenship test Meghan found ‘so hard’?It is unclear whether Pennsylvania will appeal against the decision.The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said: ‘We’re disappointed. No-one should be disenfranchised for an irrelevant technicality.’So far this election cycle, counties across Pennsylvania have reported receiving 850,000 completed mail-in ballots out of 1.4 million requested, according to the Associated Press news agency.The state is host to two of the most closely watched races in the US midterms: the gubernatorial race between Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano, and the Senate race between celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz and Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.DON’T MISS:Queen Elizabeth’s unseen images of fixing a car engine to be auctioned [REVEAL]Joe Biden warns ‘democracy under attack’  [INSIGHT]Japan on ’emergency’ alert as North Korea launches missile attack [SPOTLIGHT]The latter race could ultimately determine which party controls the Senate.Pennsylvania electoral officials have warned that it could take several days for the votes to be counted and certified. Legal challenges over mail-in ballots could delay the process further.Mail-in ballots have also been the focus of lawsuits in a number of other states including Delaware, Wisconsin, Arizona and Illinois.