SCOTUS says some Pennsylvania voters whose mail ballots are rejected can still have votes counted

The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously agreed to allow a Pennsylvania ruling to remain that lets voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons to have their votes still counted if they vote again by provisional ballot.

The appeal to the Supreme Court was led by the Republican National Committee (RNC), who claimed the state Supreme Court "misread" the Pennsylvania Election Code, which says a “provisional ballot shall not be counted” if the mail ballot was still received by county election officials in a timely manner.

“When the legislature says that certain ballots can never be counted, a state court cannot blue-pencil that clear command into always," the RNC's legal team wrote in their application. "Here, the General Assembly could not have been clearer."

It is unclear how many voters will be impacted as a result of the Supreme Court's order, because some counties do not notify voters of an error on their ballots. These errors include failing to include secrecy envelopes and failing to sign or date the outer envelope, per CBS News.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees Supreme Court appeals from Pennsylvania, wrote in a brief that the case was “a matter of considerable importance," but that he was not sure that a different ruling would have given Republicans what they truly sought.

"Even if we agreed with the applicants’ federal constitutional argument (a question on which I express no view at this time), we could not prevent the consequences they fear," he wrote.

The statement was made in conjunction with Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.