On May 20, the Third Circuit issued a three-page order in Migliari v Lehigh County Board of Elections, 22-1499, that 257 disputed mail-in ballots case in a Pennsylvania election last year should count. The judges relied on the “materiality” language in the federal Voting Rights Act, which says that states many not “deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under state law to vote in such election.”
This is a powerful law, which was originally known as 42 U.S.C. 1971, and has since been re-codified as 52 U.S.C. 10101(c)(2)(B). In the past it has sometimes been used to prevent states from disqualifying petitions for trivial errors.
In this case, the Third Circuit ruled that the Pennsylvania law requiring mail-in ballots to contain the signing date, next to the voter’s signature, on the outer envelope of a postal ballot is not “material”. Because it is obvious that the voter cast the ballot in time (because the elections office received it in time), the judgment is that the date is not important enough to invalidate the ballot.
The judges have not yet written an opinion explaining their reasoning, but will do so soon. The judges are Theodore McKee and Joseph Greenaway (Clinton appointees), and Paul Matey (a Trump appointee). The lower court had ducked the issue on procedural grounds.
The Pennsylvania state courts have not been clear about their attitude toward the date requirement.