Pennsylvania voters dash to cast new ballots after GOP lawsuit disqualified thousands of votes


Last week, thousands of mail-in ballots were invalidated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Republicans suing to disqualify any ballots with missing or incorrect dates. Some voters throughout the critical swing state were left scrambling to cast a new vote in time for it to be counted on Election Day.
Critics believe the lawsuit, and others like it in key battleground states are part of a "concerted attempt at partisan voter suppression." Republicans in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are pushing to disqualify a large number of mail-in ballots while encouraging their supporters to only vote in person, The Washington Post reports.
Republicans in Pennsylvania filed their lawsuit in October to reverse the previously-approved policy of counting votes with missing dates on the outer envelopes. The state Supreme Court ruled in their favor and ordered election officials to refrain from counting incorrectly dated mail-in ballots. As a result, thousands of ballots were set aside, which experts say could significantly affect Election Day vote counts, per the Post.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Experts view these lawsuits as parallel to the larger campaign waged by the GOP against alleged voter fraud over the past two years. Republicans are also encouraging GOP voters to cast their ballots in person. Critics insist that this is an attempt to separate the parties by voting method so that their lawsuits target votes that are mainly Democratic.
Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and his camp have filed a countersuit to get the Supreme Court's decision reversed, per CNN.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.
-
Another messaging app used by the White House is in hot water
The Explainer TeleMessage was seen being used by former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz
-
AI hallucinations are getting worse
In the Spotlight And no one knows why it is happening
-
Social media: How ‘content’ replaced friendship
Feature Facebook has shifted from connecting with friends to competing with entertainment companies
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'
-
Trump is not sure he must follow the Constitution
speed read When asked about due process for migrants in a TV interview, President Trump said he didn't know whether he had to uphold the Fifth Amendment
-
Trump judge bars deportations under 1798 law
speed read A Trump appointee has ruled that the president's use of a wartime act for deportations is illegal
-
Trump ousts Waltz as NSA, taps him for UN role
speed read President Donald Trump removed Mike Waltz as national security adviser and nominated him as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
-
Trump blames Biden for tariffs-linked contraction
speed read The US economy shrank 0.3% in the first three months of 2025, the Commerce Department reported
-
Trump says he could bring back Ábgego García but won't
Speed Read At a rally to mark his 100th day in office, the president doubled down on his unpopular immigration and economic policies
-
Canada's Liberals, Carney win national election
Speed Read The party of Prime Minister Mark Carney beat Conservative Pierre Poilievre thanks in part to Trump's trade war