Ball vs. Chapman

  • Filed: 10/19/2022
  • Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
  • Latest Update: Oct 19, 2022
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Summary

A coalition of voting rights advocates filed a motion to intervene in Ball v. Chapman, the latest legal effort in the commonwealth to invalidate mail-in ballots that are missing a handwritten date on the return envelope.

A coalition of voting rights advocates filed a motion to intervene in Ball v. Chapman, the latest legal effort in the commonwealth to invalidate mail-in ballots that are missing a handwritten date on the return envelope. The ACLU of Pennsylvania and the American Civil Liberties Union are representing the Black Political Empowerment Project, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Common Cause Pennsylvania, NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference, Make the Road Pennsylvania, and POWER.

The groups represented by the ACLU are nonpartisan organizations committed to promoting democracy and ensuring eligible voters in the commonwealth are able to vote and have their votes counted. With 2022 voting already underway, the disqualification of mail-in ballots without a handwritten date on the return envelope would deeply impact the work of these organizations and could potentially disenfranchise thousands of Pennsylvania voters.

The lawsuit was filed just days after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated as moot the ACLU’s victory in Migliori v. Lehigh County, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the date on the return envelope is immaterial to voters’ eligibility and, thus, under federal civil rights laws cannot be applied to disenfranchise voters.

This lawsuit follows a number of other legal efforts to disqualify mail-in ballots that are received on time by the counties but without a handwritten date on the return envelope. The three most recent court decisions, Migliori and two by the Commonwealth Court, have all ruled that undated mail ballots must be counted under both federal and state law.

Attorney(s):
Witold Walczak, Marian Schneider and Stephen Loney, ACLU of Pennsylvania; Ari J. Savitzky, Megan C. Keenan, Sophia Lin Lakin, and Adriel I. Cepeda Derieux, ACLU Voting Rights Project

Documents

Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Where it started

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Court Case
Jan 31, 2022
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  • Voting Rights|
  • +1 Issue

Migliori et al. v. Lehigh County Board of Elections

On January 31, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Lehigh County to require the county to count 257 mail-in ballots from the 2021 general election that were disqualified only because they were missing the handwritten date on the outer envelope in which the ballot is placed for mailing or submission. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five county residents, all of whom are qualified to vote and whose ballots arrived to the elections bureau in time to be tabulated. All 257 voters impacted by the disqualification of their ballots for not including the date are otherwise eligible to vote and properly followed the procedures for voting by mail. In the complaint, the ACLU states that disqualifying the undated ballots runs afoul of both the federal Civil Rights Act and the Constitution. The Civil Rights Act prohibits disqualifying a person’s vote if the reason for disqualification is “not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote(.)” The lawsuit also states that the county’s failure to notify the voters of the errors violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, the plaintiffs state that the date requirement is “superfluous” and an undue burden that restricts their right to vote, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. On March 16, the federal district court ruled against the voters. On May 20, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of the voters, ordering the 257 ballots to be counted, and accompanied their judgment with a precedential opinion released a week later. On May 31, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily halted, or stayed, the circuit court's ruling while the justices considered the case. On June 9, 2022, the Supreme Court denied the stay in a 6-3 ruling, leaving the appeals court ruling in place and clearing the way for the ballots to be counted. On October 11, 2022, months after the Lehigh County election had been certified, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower courts' rulings, meaning that the appeals court ruling is no longer precedent in the federal Third Circuit.