https://archive.ph/wip/SRDeO

"A man who lost a 2021 Pennslyania election made a federal case out it and Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a state appellate court to side with him.

David Ritter lost a 2021 election to become a Pennsylvania judge by five votes after 257 absentee ballots without dates were counted. Since the Keystone State’s election law requires a date be entered on absentee ballots, Mr. Ritter argued those undated ballots should not have been counted in a lawsuit filed in state court.

In Philadelphia, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided the case in favor of the state, citing a provision of the 1964 Voting Rights Act as the basis for its decision.

The Conservative Brief further reported:

The justices vacated the ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as requested by David Ritter, who lost his 2021 bid for a spot on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas to a Democratic rival by five votes after 257 absentee ballots without date notations were counted.

The high court’s action means that the 3rd Circuit ruling cannot be used as a precedent in the three states covered by this regional federal appellate court – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware – to allow the counting of ballots with minor flaws such as the voter failing to fill in the date. Vacating the ruling does not change Ritter’s loss in his race.

The 3rd Circuit had ruled that invalidating the un-dated ballots would violate a provision of a landmark 1964 federal law called the Civil Rights Act aimed at ensuring that minor ballot errors do not deny someone the right to vote.

The state requires that anyone submitting a mail-in ballot “fill out, date and sign” the ballot, but the appeals court ruled that the right to vote superseded those rules."