The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted an order that had injected uncertainty into the debate over whether undated mail ballots should be counted in Pennsylvania elections.
The unsigned order applied specifically to a contested 2021 judicial race in Lehigh County. But the questions raised by that case have plagued election officials as they tallied the votes from the May 17 primary and became a flashpoint in the tight GOP primary for U.S. Senate between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.
The justices voted to lift a temporary freeze imposed by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. last week, which pressed pause on a lower court ruling to include the undated ballots in the final tally of the Lehigh race. But Alito warned in a dissent Thursday that he believed confusion over their legitimacy would persist unless he and his other colleagues on the Supreme Court weighed in soon and could affect Pennsylvania’s November elections.
