Pennsylvania’s Mail Ballot Dating Rules Keep Voters Guessing Amid Legal Back-and-Forth

Pennsylvania voters trying to navigate mail-in voting face a maddening question: what exactly do they need to put in the date line on their ballot envelope? The answer has been anything but steady since the state rolled out no-excuse mail voting under Act 77 in 2020.

Originally, the law required voters to both date and sign their ballot return envelopes. But courts have since stepped in, ruling in 2024 that counties cannot reject ballots simply because the date is missing or incorrect. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court found such rejections unconstitutional, while the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that the dating requirement violated voters’ First Amendment rights.

Despite these rulings, the legal battles continue as appeals move forward. Election officials still urge voters to fill in the current date next to their signature to avoid any potential issues. This back-and-forth has left voters confused and thousands of ballots discarded in past elections due to improper or missing dates.

Voting rights groups like Common Cause, the NAACP, and the ACLU argue that the date line serves no real purpose. They point out that Pennsylvania’s ballot tracking system already records when ballots are sent and received, making the handwritten date redundant. Proponents of the rule claim it acts as a backup check and could help detect fraud, but experts note that other safeguards, such as timestamping envelopes on receipt, already provide those protections.

A notable example cited was a 2022 case in Lancaster County where a ballot was cast after the voter had died. Opponents of the date rule highlight that even if the date line were blank, other controls would have caught the fraud.

In 2023, the Pennsylvania Department of State tried to reduce date-related rejections by pre-filling the year on the return envelope, which helped but did not solve the problem entirely.

For the May 19 primary, voters should avoid writing birthdays or registration dates and instead enter the current date on the envelope. While counties currently cannot reject ballots for date errors, the legal uncertainty means voters should play it safe.

This ongoing tug-of-war over a seemingly small detail reveals a larger pattern: election rules that confuse voters and create opportunities for disenfranchisement under the guise of election integrity. Pennsylvania’s mail ballot dating saga is a stark reminder that election administration is still a frontline in the fight for democracy.