On March 28, the State Democracy Research Initiative’s faculty co-directors Miriam Seifter and Rob Yablon filed an amicus brief with five other legal scholars in Baxter v. Philadelphia Board of Elections, a case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concerning a rule that requires voters to properly date their mail-in ballots for them to be counted.
At issue in the case is whether the state constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause prohibits election officials from excluding timely-received absentee ballots because they lack a written date on the return envelope. In the past year, three lower courts have answered this question in the affirmative, permanently enjoining the relevant statutes. But when the cases were appealed to the supreme court, the justices vacated those decisions on jurisdictional grounds, explaining the rulings were too close in time to the 2024 election. With the election now decided, the justices agreed to resolve the issue.
The brief, filed in support of the plaintiffs, urges Pennsylvania’s high court to affirm the lower courts and hold that the state constitution’s bedrock democratic commitments make it improper to exclude ballots based on immaterial technical errors. The brief also explains that numerous state courts around the country have similarly rejected laws and practices that create unnecessary barriers to electoral participation.
The group of legal scholars includes Jessica Bulman-Pozen (Columbia Law School), Bertrall Ross (University of Virginia School of Law), Miriam Seifter (University of Wisconsin Law School), Kate Shaw (University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law), Robert F. Williams (Rutgers University School of Law), Robert Yablon (University of Wisconsin Law School), and Quinn Yeargain (Michigan State University College of Law). Staff Attorney Adam Sopko contributed to this brief.