On Monday, Democrat John Fetterman filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania, challenging the state’s law that requires a ballot to be properly signed and dated to be considered valid.
The bigger picture: CNN states that ballots with missing or incorrect dates are one of the “hottest voting disputes in the pivotal state,” with over 3,400 mail-in ballots at risk of being rejected because of incorrect information, missing dates, signatures or secrecy envelopes.
- Fetterman has been in what is predicted to be a tight race for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania against Dr. Mehmet Oz, in what has been one of the most popular elections in the nation this year.
Key takeaways: “The Date Instruction 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,” the lawsuit reads.
- “Pennsylvania law determines voter eligibility based on the date of the election — rather than the date of marking the ballot — (so) the Date Instruction provides no information about whether a voter is qualified.”
Details: The lawsuit is backed by Fetterman’s campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and three Pennsylvania voters, challenging Pennsylvania’s 67 county boards of elections.
- The suit claims that Pennsylvania’s board of elections violates federal law, citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act that states no person should be denied the right to vote, despite an “error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting,” the law reads.
- This lawsuit follows the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to require the state to dismiss the incomplete ballots, according to NBC News.