Signatures have always been required - the state Supreme Court has said a missing signature is one of the disqualifying mistakes a voter can make, along with the privacy envelope and, for now, the date the voter signed. This case was about whether, upon noticing a missing element (and thus a ballot that couldn’t be counted), election workers can notify the voter to either have them sign or toss the ballot and cast a provisional one to replace it.

You may be thinking of other rulings that said ballots can’t be tossed based on whether the signature matches what was in a voter’s registration, since the courts said signature matching by election workers is much more subjective and signatures can change day to day.

In a single-judge ruling Thursday, the Commonwealth Court tossed out a lawsuit led by the RNC & PA GOP seeking to block any counties from implementing “notice & cure” procedures — where election workers who see that a returned mail-in ballot is missing something crucial to being counted, like a signature, date, or secrecy envelope, can contact the voter to have them come in to fix the deficiency or cast a provisional ballot to replace the uncountable one.

Judge Ellen Ceisler ruled that her court lacked jurisdiction over the dispute, since the Commonwealth Court hears cases and appeals involving state government, and state election officials were only giving guidance to county boards of elections, which are themselves local and not branches of the state. So if the Republicans (or anyone else) wanted to challenge the counties that did notice & cure, they’d have to file lawsuits in those counties’ courts.

It’s kind of a technicality that the case was dismissed on, but Judge Ceisler had earlier refused an injunction the Republicans sought before the 2022 election over the same issue, reasoning that some voters had fixed their busted ballots in years past and shouldn’t be blindsided now. The state Supreme Court, short by a Justice after last year’s death of Max Baer, then deadlocked 3-3 over the injunction, which lets the lower court ruling stand.

The practice could still be challenged on a county-by-county basis, or Republicans could appeal again to the Supreme Court of PA and hope for a different break. But some of the Trump lawsuits after 2020 had tried to make the same arguments about unfairness to voters whose counties didn’t allow “curing” and the courts said to sue those counties, not throw out the cured ballots in other counties. And those courts didn’t really take up arguments over whether looking at a returned ballot envelope to see that it was missing a date or signature counted as “pre-canvassing,” which isn’t allowed in PA until the morning of the election.

Sorry for your loss and apologies if this dragged up any old trauma.

Yep, I remember that trial — the guys had apparently been drinking buddies a long time, but the ex-cop got upset after the victim poked or hit him as he nodded off at the bar. They fought, broke up for a couple of minutes, then fought again, with the second round ending in the shooting. I don’t remember whether I was there for the verdict.

pre-trial arguments

The ex-cop’s testimony

More of the trial