Baxter and Kinniry v. Philadelphia Board of Elections

ACLU-PA sued the Philadelphia Board of Elections on behalf of two registered voters whose timely mail ballots submitted in the September 17 special election for state representative were rejected because they failed to handwrite a date on the outer return envelope.

On September 23, 2024, the ACLU-PA, Public Interest Law Center, and the law firm Arnold and Porter LLP sued the Philadelphia Board of Elections on behalf of two registered voters whose timely mail ballots submitted in the September 17th special election for state representative were rejected because they failed to handwrite a date on the outer return envelope. Recent prior lawsuits have found that the voter-written date is meaningless and is not used by county boards, including Philadelphia, to establish voter eligibility or timely ballot receipt. Petitioners argued that the refusal to count timely mail ballots submitted by eligible voters because of this dating error violates the fundamental right to vote under the free and equal elections clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

On September 25, a hearing was held in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. On September 26, Judge Crumlish ruled in the voters’ favor and ordered the Philadelphia Board of Elections to count the “date-disqualified” mail-in ballots submitted by Mr. Baxter, Ms. Kinniry, and 67 other eligible voters in the 2024 special election. The court found that “the refusal to count a ballot due to a voter’s failure to ‘date’” the outer return envelope “violates Art. I, § 5 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

On October 30, the Commonwealth Court ruled that enforcing the handwritten date rule is unconstitutional and ordered that the 69 disqualified ballots in the Philadelphia special elections be counted.