The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued the landmark decision of Eakin v. Adams County Board of Elections on August 26, 2025, holding that the requirement for Pennsylvania county election boards to discard mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect date fields on return envelopes violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.[1]

In 2019, the Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted universal mail-in voting for the first time in Pennsylvania history under Act 77.[2] Pennsylvania voters are now permitted to submit mail-in ballots pursuant to 25 P.S. §§ 3150.11, et seq., provided they meet the requirements set forth in the statute. Voters may submit an application for a mail-in ballot any time before a primary or general election.[3] Once a voter’s application to vote by mail is approved, the county election board provides a mail-in ballot,[4] which the voter fills out and seals within an accompanying secrecy envelope.[5] The voter then places the secrecy envelope in a return envelope.[6] The return envelope contains a declaration that the voter is eligible to vote and has not already voted,[7] which the mail-in voter must sign and date before mailing the ballot.[8]

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has strictly construed this date requirement, holding that even “a mistaken digit, a stray pen mark, or missing information” will disqualify the ballot such that the county election boards should discard it and not count the elector’s vote.[9] Prior Pennsylvania Supreme Court precent also dictated that county election boards were not required to notify voters when their ballots were rejected, nor were voters permitted to cure the relevant date deficiency.[10]

The Third Circuit highlighted in Eakin that, as a result of this strict construction of the date requirement, over 10,000 ballots were discarded in the 2022 General Election.[11] And although Governor Shapiro’s redesigned return envelopes helped reduce the number of discarded mail-in ballots in the 2024 general election, the Third Circuit noted that approximately 4,500 votes were still not counted due to an incorrect or missing date.[12]

Plaintiff-appellee Bette Eakin was one such Pennsylvania resident whose mail-in vote was discarded in the 2022 election for failure to comply with the date requirement.[13] Eakin originally filed suit in the Western District of Pennsylvania against all 67 Pennsylvania county election boards on November 7, 2022, alleging that the date requirement violated the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.[14] Although the District Court found Eakin’s Materiality argument was foreclosed, it still held that the date requirement violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.[15] It therefore granted Eakin’s summary judgment motion and enjoined the county election boards from discarding ballots contained in return envelopes with missing or incorrect dates.[16] The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania (collective the “RNC”), which all had intervened in the case before the trial court, timely appealed.[17] The Third Circuit was therefore left to consider whether the requirement that county election boards discard mail-in ballots sent to them in return envelopes with missing or incorrect dates violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.[18]

After walking through the eighty-eight-year history of mail-in and absentee voting in the Commonwealth, the Court applied the two-step Anderson-Burdick analysis to determine whether the date requirement was unconstitutional.[19] Under the first step, the Court considered the nature and extent of the burden the date requirement imposed on the voters’ protected rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.[20] The Court explained that this step requires considering several non-exhaustive factors, including (1) the ease of voter compliance; (2) whether the law disproportionately limits political participation in a discriminatory manner;[21] (3) whether alternative means exist for voters to vindicate their burdened interest; (4) the sufficiency of the challenger’s evidence of specific unconstitutional applications of the law; and (5) the impacts of the law.[22] After weighing these factors, the Court found that the date requirement imposed a minimal burden on voting rights.[23] In particular, the Court found that the date requirement caused county election boards to discard thousands of mail-in ballots in both the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.[24] And as the Court explained, those individual voters could not rectify this by voting in person because they could not meet the statutory requirement to remit their ballots at the polling place, as they had already relinquished possession of them when they mailed them in.[25]

The Court next moved on to the second step in the Anderson-Burdick analysis, which requires it to “identify and evaluate the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule.”[26] The Commonwealth advanced three State interests to support the date requirement, all of which the Court rejected. First, the Court held that the date requirement did not facilitate the orderly administration of elections because, as per the statute, it had no bearing on whether a voter was eligible to cast a ballot, whether a voter actually completed a ballot, or whether a ballot was considered timely (as timeliness is determine by when the county election board receives a ballot, not when a voter completed and signed the declaration on the return envelope).[27] Second, the Court found that the RNC did not show that the date requirement promoted the solemnity of voting in any way.[28] And third, while the state had legitimate interests in detecting, preventing, and deterring fraud, the Court concluded that the date requirement did not further those interests.[29] The Court therefore held that the burden the date requirement imposed on voters’ rights outweighed the State’s interests in enforcing the rule and affirmed the district court’s holding.[30]

As residents of a swing-state with 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania voters have the potential to turn the tide in national elections, and often, Pennsylvania elections are called at close margins.[31] In fact, Pennsylvania was an unmistakable battleground state in both the 2020 and 2024 national elections.[32] In light of this, it should come as no surprise that the Commonwealth is a potential hotbed for election challenges and claims of voter fraud[33]—and recently, numerous challenges have been raised related to Pennsylvania election laws and, in particular, mail-in ballots and mail-in ballot applications,[34] including a lawsuit concerning the 2020 election results, which asserted that universal mail-in ballots violated the Pennsylvania Constitution and should not have been counted.[35] The subject of vote-by-mail has also been the focus of increased debate on the national stage,[36] and the Third Circuit in Eakin even highlighted that mail-in ballots can sway Pennsylvania elections.[37]

Pennsylvania’s status as a closely contested battleground state heightens interest in any ruling affecting ballot counting and vote-by-mail. The Eakin decision, if it stands, may therefore play a pivotal role in shaping the administration and outcome of Pennsylvania elections moving forward. It will allow for more absentee and mail-in ballots to be counted towards election totals, thereby reducing the number of mail-in votes discarded on the basis of an issue in the date field and increasing the influence of mail-in ballots on the overall election. It may also provide some clarity on the application of the date requirement under Pennsylvania law. However, Eakin does not address other aspects of mail-in ballot administration, and additional challenges to other areas of Pennsylvania’s vote-by-mail laws may be coming down the pike. One thing is for certain: Pennsylvania and its courts (both state and federal) will continue to be a hotbed of election litigation, with the commensurate effect of any decisions being an impact on voting and elections on both the state and national level.