A recent appeals court ruling, unrelated to the current year ballot counting, may have an impact within the close Pennsylvania senate primary race between David McCormick and Mehmet Oz.  Currently Mehmet Oz is ahead by around 1,000 votes [NYT LINK]

The court ruled that mail-in ballots without a date on the envelope may be counted in the prior election.

“The three-judge panel’s judgment said the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial.” They said they found no reason to refuse counting the ballots that were set aside in the Nov. 2, 2021, election for common pleas judge in Lehigh County.

This ruling happens as the current mail-in ballots in PA are being counted.  McCormick is slightly winning the mail-in ballot count, so his team quickly sent the ruling out to all Pennsylvania voting districts.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal court ruled Friday that mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 Pennsylvania county judge race, a decision that could complicate the ongoing process of vote counting in the state’s neck-and-neck U.S. Senate Republican primary.

Elections officials, lawyers and candidates are scrambling to understand and respond to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which was issued late in the day without a written opinion laying out its rationale.

It had an immediate effect in Pennsylvania’s too-close-to-call Republican primary contest for U.S. Senate, where counties are still adding up votes in the race between celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund executive David McCormick.

McCormick has been doing better than Oz among mail-in ballots and McCormick’s campaign quickly wrote to the state’s 67 counties to advise them of the decision and request a hearing if they won’t count the ballots in question. (read more)

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