The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is siding with the Republican Party in a last-minute mail-in voting dispute

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has halted an effort to allow ballots without a handwritten date to be counted in the 2024 election.

The ruling overturns a Commonwealth Court decision that found the state law requiring a handwritten date was unconstitutional. The Pennsylvania Republican Party appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, and now undated ballots will not be counted in the upcoming election.

Judge Kevin Dougherty warned the Commonwealth Court of its ruling in a strongly worded opinion regarding Friday’s ruling.

“This Court will not impose or approve any substantive changes to existing laws and procedures while elections are still taking place.” We said these carefully chosen words only weeks ago, but they apparently went unheard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation plays out,” Dougherty wrote.

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“Today’s order, which I agree with, gives rights to the ship. And it sends a loud message to all courts in this Commonwealth: by declaring that we would not tolerate substantial changes to existing laws and procedures in the upcoming election, we said what we wanted. Meant and meant what we said,” he continued.

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Pennsylvania Republicans cheered Friday’s ruling, saying Democrats have repeatedly tried to undermine the dating requirement.

“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the law, and the dated ballot requirement will be in effect for this election. Democrats have repeatedly tried to eliminate this important voting guarantee, and we have stopped them every time,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. . “We are committed to protecting critical voting safeguards to ensure every vote is cast and counted correctly and will continue to fight across Pennsylvania to protect the vote.”

State officials who support counting undated ballots argue the change would make the process easier for election workers. The Pennsylvania Department of State filed a plea in favor of the change ahead of the court’s ruling Friday.

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“The requirement that county boards set aside ballots with reporting date errors—and especially the requirement that they set aside ballots with ‘incorrect’ dates—placed a significant burden on county boards. Election workers must manually review each ballot to determine if it has a ‘correct’ date,” the letter said, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

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Friday’s ruling marked the second time this month that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has blocked Democratic-backed efforts to dismantle the dating requirement.