Pennsylvania sues 3 counties over counting mail-in ballots

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's elections agency sued three Republican-controlled county governments on Tuesday, seeking to force their election boards to report primary results that include ballots with undated exterior envelopes — the subject of several other lawsuits.

The Department of State sued Lancaster, Berks and Fayette counties in Commonwealth Court, describing them as “outlier counties” that have not properly certified vote tallies from the May 17 election that included nominating contests for U.S. Senate, governor and most of the Legislature.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled May 20 that mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 county judge race in Pennsylvania. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the Senate vote-counting after the primary, three justices signed onto an opinion that said the 3rd Circuit was “very likely wrong.”

A Commonwealth Court judge, in a separate case that was directly about reporting this year's Senate primary election results, ruled on June 2 that county boards of election should count mail-in votes that lack the security envelopes' hand-written dates, and report vote totals both with and without those ballots.

In the new case, the Department of State and acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf want an order forcing the three counties to include in their primary election tallies, within three days, all absentee and mail-in voters, “even if the voter failed to write a date on the declaration printed on the ballot's return envelope."

They said in a filing that a ballot envelope's handwritten date “is not necessary for any purpose, does not remedy any mischief and does not advance any other objective," and that “allowing just...