Philip J Fry said:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/11/01/politics/supreme-court-pennsylvania-voting
Hawg, can you explain this to me like in a 2 year old?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'll give it a try.
If you mail in your ballot with the wrong date, wrong address, or forget to sign the ballot, it is an illegal ballot under state law. It is known as a defective ballot.
You can't withdraw a mailed in ballot, so, if you mailed in a defective ballot, you just don't get your vote counted.
However, election officials may contact you if you do have a defective ballot. If they do, you can cast a "provisional" ballot. These provisional ballots are only counted if the total provisional ballots cast are higher than the margin of victory of the final vote.
GOP was suing to say that mail-in ballots that were not put into a "secrecy" sleeve should be considered defective ballots, and shouldn't be able to be counted, and you shouldn't be able to cast a provisional ballot for that specific defect. The court ruled that they should be considered defective, but any provisional ballots cast because of a lack of the secrecy sleeve should still be counted.
It creates a moral dilemma, as, ballots that are mailed in without the secrecy sleeve are plain for the poll workers to see. A dishonest poll worker could contact all of the defective mail-in voters who voted for dems to cast a provisional ballot, but decide not to, or maybe "run out of time" to, contact any GOP voters who cast defective ballots.
GOP rightly argued that receiving naked ballots just allowed more cheating by poll workers, and that there was no reasonable way of holding poll workers accountable for who they contacted about their defective ballots.
The court ruled that the importance of counting every ballot was more important, and ruled that the provisional ballots should be counted like any other defect.
