Federal voting rights laws have long held that voters cannot be disenfranchised for making a mistake that is not “material”. In other words, if the error made by the voter is merely technical and does not truly pertain to that voter’s ability to cast a vote, the error should not be used to discard the ballot.

On May 27, 2022, the Third Circuit had used that provision of federal law to allow some ballots to be counted in a Pennsylvania local race held in 2021. Even though certain mail-in ballots did not have the “date” blank filled in by the voter, the Court ruled that the ballots should count. All the arriving ballots had been date-stamped by the receiving election office, so the Third Circuit reasoned that it didn’t really make any difference if the voter had also written in the date the ballot had been mailed.

On June 9, the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to stay the Third Circuit decision, by a vote of 6-3. The dissenters were Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas. But on October 11, the U.S. Supreme Court acted in the case again, ruling that the case is moot and therefore the Third Circuit decision is to be vacated, which is another word for “erased.” So although there is no effect on the 2021 Pennsylvania local election, the precedent is eliminated and the matter will need to be re-adjudicated in the future, because it is bound to recur. The vote on October 11 is 7-2, with Justices Sotomayor and Jackson dissenting. The case is Ritter v Migliori, 22-30.