On June 9, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, decided to accept for the time being the Third Circuit ruling that allows postal ballots to be counted, even if the voter forgot to add the date next to his or her signature. In Pennsylvania, all postal ballots are date-stamped when received by the election administration office. Thus, the Third Circuit felt the failure of the voter to add a date didn’t really matter.

The Third Circuit had depended on the “materiality” provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, which says, in essence, that no one should be deprived of the vote just because of a paperwork error that doesn’t make any practical difference.

Justices Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch were in the minority, and Justice Alito wrote for the three of them. See his reasoning here. He wants to interpret the “materiality” clause in a very narrow manner. It is possible the Court will accept the case, Ritter v Migliori, 21A772, in the near future, if the 2021 candidate who lost in the Third Circuit wants to bother.

The “materiality” clause has been used in the past to strike down very strict rules for petitions, so it is helpful to ballot access if interpreted broadly.