On February 20, the Third Circuit heard argument in Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP v Secretary, 23-3166. See this story. The issue is whether a returned postal ballot is valid or not if the voter forgot to fill out the question on the outer envelope that asks for the date.

All returned ballots are date-stamped when received, so the information about the date the voter put the ballot in a postal collection box is not actually used for any purpose. The 1964 federal Civil Rights Law has a section that is known as the “materiality” voting law. It says if a voter makes a mistake that is not actually “material” for election administration purposes, the vote should count.

This issue has been in Pennsylvania courts for three years now. The U.S. District Court had ruled in favor of the voter-plaintiffs, but then the Third Circuit had stayed the decision.

On February 16, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, removed a candidate from the Illinois Democratic primary for a judicial position. Rice v Cook County Officers Electoral Board, 2024-COEL-7.

According to this story, early voting had already started, although no postal ballots had been sent out yet. Votes for the removed candidate, Ashonta Rice, will not be tallied.

The lower court had also ruled against the candidate, but had stayed its own decision.

If you are in or near Ohio’s Capital City of Columbus today, I am honored to be speaking at Noon (and it will start precisely at Noon) to the Federalist Society at the Capital University School of Law, 303 E. Broad St., Room 245. The event is open to the public.

The topics will be Candidate Ballot Access and Ranked Choice Voting. After I address the group, Mark Brown, Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair of Law at Capital University Law School, will speak, followed by Q&A. This all has to fit into 50 minutes, because afternoon classes commence at 1PM, so I will have to be on my game and less loquacious than usual.

For those of you on the fence and not vegetarian, the event will be catered by Chick-fil-A. I hope to see you there.