The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has recently put the brakes on a contentious legal maneuver from left-wing groups aiming to challenge the integrity of our election system. This court affirmed that officials overstepped their bounds by counting undated or incorrectly dated Pennsylvania mail-in ballots during the pivotal 2020 election. In a robust defense of state law and common sense, a three-judge panel upheld that such ballots must be considered invalid, standing firm against a lower court’s erroneous decision.
The attempt by these organizations to sway the court into reconsidering its decision en banc was rightly denied this Tuesday. Pennsylvania, which adopted universal mail-in balloting in 2019, clearly stipulates that voters must date and sign their mail-in ballot envelopes. However, the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms witnessed thousands of ballots flouting this requirement—either missing dates entirely or featuring incorrect ones. Initially, a panel from the same court erroneously ruled that this requirement violated the Materiality Provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which asserts that no voter should be disenfranchised due to immaterial paperwork errors. Thankfully, this decision was vacated following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Ritter v. Migliori.
When it comes to casting a ballot, there should be absolute certainty that each one adheres to the letter of the law. If someone can’t manage to follow the clear instructions on a mail-in ballot, there’s no valid reason their vote should be counted alongside those that have been properly completed. Accuracy in the voting process is fundamental to the integrity of our elections; failing to enforce this compromises the entire system. Why should we dilute the value of accurately cast votes by accepting those that fail to meet established legal standards?
Now more than ever, we must stand firm on election integrity, especially against the backdrop of claims from the left that the 2020 elections were free of voter fraud. Consider this: a Heartland/Rasmussen poll revealed that one in five mail-in voters admitted to committing at least one type of voter fraud during the 2020 election. This statistic isn’t just alarming; it’s a clarion call for stricter election security measures. How can we trust the sanctity of our elections if we turn a blind eye to such confessions? The stakes are too high to ignore the clear need for robust safeguards in our voting process.
In times when the sanctity of each vote is under scrutiny, this ruling is a beacon of judicial restraint and a bulwark against the relentless push by the left to dilute electoral integrity. As we witness more liberal strongholds across the nation grappling with the consequences of lax electoral policies, this ruling is a timely reminder of the need for rules that secure, rather than undermine, our democratic processes.
