Black Political Empowerment Project v. Schmidt

On May 28, 2024, ACLU-PA filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the commonwealth’s requirement that voters who submit mail ballots include a handwritten date on the voter declaration on the outside of the return envelope.

On May 28, 2024, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, with co-counsel from Public Interest Law Center and the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, filed a lawsuit asking the court to stop the counties from enforcing the handwritten date requirement because it violates voters' rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of nine advocacy organizations - Black Political Empowerment Project, Casa San Jose, Common Cause Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Make The Road Pennsylvania, New Pennsylvania Project Education Fund, OnePA Activists For All, Pittsburgh United, and POWER Interfaith.

The handwritten date requirement has led to the disqualification of the ballots of tens of thousands of Pennsylvania voters who were otherwise eligible and returned their ballots by the deadline, including over 10,000 in the 2022 general election alone, and violates the free and equal elections clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The defendants are Secretary of State Al Schmidt and the boards of elections of Philadelphia and Allegheny counties.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to permanently stop the enforcement of the handwritten date rule because voters' state constitutional rights are violated when their ballots are disqualified under the rule.

On August 30, 2024, a panel of the Commonwealth Court found that the handwritten date requirement is unconstitutional when enforced against voters who timely submit their ballots. The case was appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which vacated the Commonwealth Court decision on September 13, 2024, and then dismissed the case on September 19.