US District Court Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ruled Monday that Pennsylvania must count undated or misdated mail-in ballots, finding that rejecting such ballots violate the First Amendment.

Plaintiffs Bette Eakin, Ines Massella, Fetterman for PA, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed suit against Pennsylvania’s 67 county boards of elections in 2022. The suit claimed that the date on a mail-in ballot has “no bearing on a voter’s qualifications and serves no purpose other than to erect barriers to qualified voters exercising their fundamental constitutional right to vote.” The plaintiffs argued by not counting these ballots, the defendants were violating the First Amendment Right.

Judge Baxter ruled that rejecting rejecting misdated or undated mail-in ballots is a First Amendment violation. Even though dating the mail-in ballots imposes a minimal burden on the plaintiff’s rights, Baxter found that Pennsylvania has failed to identify any interests the dating requirement brought to the government.

The plaintiff also argued that rejecting misdated or undated mail-in ballots is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act.

The Materiality Provision prohibits states from denying the right to vote over paperwork errors or omissions. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has already held that the date requirement did not violate the Materiality Provision. Judge Baxtor also did not discuss the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Pennsylvania, voters are permitted to cast votes by mail, but they must date and sign the declaration on the outer return envelope. Before Monday’s ruling, if the date on the outer envelope was missing or wrong, the ballot was not counted. Judge Baxter acknowledged that in the 2022 general election, there were over 10,000 mail ballots disqualified for this reason.

Whether to count misdated or undated ballots was also an issue in 2024 when the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania sued the 67 county boards of elections. In the suit, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reaffirmed the holding that, “the Election Code commands absentee and mail-in electors to date the declaration that appears upon ballot return envelopes, and failure to comply with that command renders a ballot invalid as a matter of Pennsylvania law.” Therefore, undated or misdated mail-in ballots were not counted in the 2024 general election.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is set to review a similar case which will determine how the issue is handled.