Pennsylvania voting rights groups have been joined by the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, in an attempt to persuade the Third Circuit to rehear Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP Branches v Secretary, 23-3166. This is the case over whether the “materiality” portion of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Law should invalidate a Pennsylvania law on dates written on the outer envelopes of postal ballots. The law says if the voter doesn’t date the outer envelope of his or her returned ballot, the ballot cannot be counted. The Third Circuit last month upheld the legality of the Pennsylvania law in a 2-1 decision.

The “materiality” part of the Civil Rights Law says no one should be prevented from voting because of some error that is not really meaningful. The majority opinion of the Third Circuit says this only applies to laws that stop individuals from voting, but it doesn’t apply to whether that vote should be counted.