Pennsylvania
Observer Reporter: Secretary of State Schmidt hopes courts bring clarity to mail-in ballot questions
Mike Jones of The Observer-Reporter reports on Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt’s hope that the state Supreme Court will soon bring uniformity to many issues surrounding mail-in ballots.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt is hoping the state Supreme Court will soon bring uniformity to many contentious issues surrounding mail-in ballots, such as the legality of so-called “ballot-curing” or whether dates are required to be written by voters on the outer envelopes.
“Well there’s plenty of disagreements on how elections should be run, but one thing everyone agrees on is wanting greater clarity,” Schmidt said. “So when there is something in the law that is yet to be settled, or something new that arises, we really rely on the courts to make those decisions and do so expeditiously. It’s fair to voters, it’s fair to people who run elections, and everybody, when everyone knows what the rules are around election administration.”
During a wide-ranging interview Thursday at the Herald-Standard’s office in Uniontown, Schmidt addressed a variety of concerns confronting voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election, but noted many issues still must be settled surrounding Act 77 of 2019 that expanded the use of mail-in ballots.
After a flurry of legal challenges since no-excuse mail-in ballots were implemented in 2020, the state Supreme Court is now considering whether to weigh in on multiple issues that range from whether counties are permitted to allow ballot curing or if hand-written dates are required on the outer envelope in order for a mail-in vote to count.