Votebeat: Voters deserve second chance if mail ballots are rejected, Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules

Carter Walker of Votebeat reports on a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allows voters to cast a provisional ballot in person if their mail-in ballot is rejected.

Pennsylvanians must be given a chance to vote on Election Day if their mail ballots have been rejected because of a disqualifying mistake, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

That means voters who fail to correctly sign or date the return envelope or fail to use a secrecy envelope are entitled to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day at a polling place and have it counted, as long as that ballot wouldn’t be rejected for some other disqualifying issue.

In a 4-3 decision, the court said that provisional voting was meant to assure access to the right to vote, while simultaneously preventing double voting.

Justice Christine Donohue, writing for the majority, noted that the Republican litigants argued that in order to maintain election integrity, provisional ballots should not be counted, but said the majority was “at a loss to identify what honest voting principle is violated by recognizing the validity of one ballot cast by one voter.”

Read more at Votebeat.