The campaign for Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D) sued Pennsylvania election officials on Monday, requesting that undelivered or incorrectly delivered absentee ballots be counted in the midterm elections.
The decision to file a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania county board of elections comes almost a week after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court instructed the board to stop counting any absentee and mail-in ballots for the general election on November 8 that were received in envelopes with an incorrect or updated date.
15th October, Wallingford, Pennsylvania On October 15, 2022, in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman holds a rally at Nether Providence Elementary School. Election Day will take place across the country on November 8, 2022.
🚨NEW: Pennsylvania court REJECTS Republican Party lawsuit seeking to stop Monroe County from providing voters notice and an opportunity to cure their rejected mail in ballots. Victory for voters in Monroe, PA!https://t.co/tS0KzZEnxq
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 7, 2022
The court also mandated that the county board of elections removes all misdated or updated ballots from the mix and preserve them since it was “evenly divided” on whether omitting to tally these ballots violated the constitution.
Regardless of the date that voters write on the outside of the envelope, Fetterman and his U.S. Senate campaign petitioned a federal judge to require the counting of all mail-in ballots. In the midterm elections, Dr. Oz and John Fetterman are running for the U.S. Senate.
All voters who cast mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania must “fill out, date, and sign the declaration” on the envelope containing the ballot. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the U.S. House and Senate campaign committees for the Democrats joined the Fetterman campaign in filing the complaint in a federal court in Pittsburgh. Two Democratic voters from Erie County who sent in undated mail-in votes were also included in the suite.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, their lawsuit claims that the “date [requirement] imposes unnecessary hurdles that eligible Pennsylvanians must clear to exercise their most fundamental right, resulting in otherwise valid votes being arbitrarily rejected without any reciprocal benefit to the Commonwealth.” Recent surveys give Republican Candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz a tiny advantage over Fetterman in the contest, which is currently neck and neck.