The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that Pennsylvania may enforce state law requiring envelopes for mail-in ballots to be dated and include the voter's signature.

In Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP v. Chapman, the plaintiff sued the then-acting secretary of the commonwealth in 2022 regarding Pennsylvania’s decision to void mail-in ballots that are either missing a date on the outer return envelopes or have an incorrect date.

Pennsylvania counties were ordered by a lower court following a Republican lawsuit in 2022 to reject undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots. The issue was then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 

The NAACP argued that the mail-in ballots are valid – regardless of the incorrect or missing date – and should be counted.