Whether a state's requirement that mail-in ballot envelopes include a handwritten date violates voters' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Anderson-Burdick framework

No question identified. : 185 (3d Cir. 2025). The underlying panel opinion, (App., infra, 31a—85a), is reported at 149 F.4th 291 (3d Cir. 2025). The District Court’s memorandum (App., infra, 91a— 111a) is reported at 775 F.Supp.3d 903 (W.D. Pa. 2025). The Court of Appeals entered an order denying the Commonwealth’s request for en banc review on October 14, 2025. Unless extended, the current deadline to file a petition for writ of certiorari is January 12, 2026. The jurisdiction of this Court would be invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 1. Pennsylvania provides for universal no-excuse mail-in voting. See 25 P.S. §§ 3146.1; 3150.11. State law mandates that voters sign and date a declaration on the outer return envelopes in which they place their mail-in ballots. 25 P.S. §§ 3146.6; 3150.16; Ball v. Chapman, 289 A.3d 1, 9 (Pa. 2023). This matter concerns that muchexamined requirement. See Migliori v. Cohen, 36 F.4th 153 (3d Cir. 2022), vacated sub nom. Ritter v. Migliori, 143 8. Ct. 297 (2022); Pennsylvania State Conf. of NAACP Branches v. Sec’y Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 97 F.4th 120 (3d Cir. 2024), cert. denied, No. 24-363, 145 S. Ct. 1125 (Jan. 21, 2025); Baxter v. Philadelphia Bd. of Elections, 332 A.3d 1183 (Pa. Jan. 17, 2025) (per curiam) (granting discretionary review). 2. In 2022, an individual voter (Bette Eakin) and several organizational plaintiffs (the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and AFT Pennsylvania) brought suit against all 67 county boards of election in the Commonwealth, claiming that enforcement of 1 The Court of Appeals’ order denying en banc review (App., infra, 26a—28a) was originally entered on October 14, 2025, but was later amended to include Judge Bove’s dissenting opinion. the handwritten date requirement violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Pennsylvanians. The District Court granted judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. App. 86a—88a. 3. A panel of the Third Circuit affirmed. It held that the framework this Court developed in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), and Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992), applied to the claims at issue. App. 55a-64a. It rejected the notion that any constitutional burden associated with handwriting a few digits next to one’s freshly-signed signature is de minimis, defining that term to mean “speculative.” App. 64a-71la. The panel grounded its analysis in an amorphous federal “right to vote,” without identifying any interests in speech, expression, association, or equal protection. App. 82a. Finding the burden to be “minimal” because of the requirement’s “downstream consequences,” the panel then dissected and rejected the proffered state interests. App. 72a. While noting that the date requirement can serve a state interest in prosecuting voter fraud, the panel dismissed this prospect as too “rare” to make enforcement a “reasonable tradeoff.” App. 82a. 4. The Commonwealth timely requested rehearing en banc. In a narrow 7-6 ruling, the Third Circuit denied that request. App. la—3a. Judge Phipps dissented, noting that a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision issued after the panel’s opinion, see Center v. Coalfield Justice v. Washington County Board of Elections, 343 A.3d 1178 (Pa. 2025), “eliminated two of the key rationales for th[e] Court’s decision: the lack of notice of a rejected mail-in ballot and the opportunity to correct such a corrected ballot.” App. 4a—5a. He also expressed skepticism at the panel’s refusal to treat the date requirement as imposing a de minimis burden and suggested that the panel “substantially undervalued the Commonwealth’s identified interests” in the date requirement. App.4a—5a. Judge Bove wrote a separate dissent, claiming that it “strains credulity and defies common sense” to conclude that the “five seconds” it takes to comply with the date requirement “violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” App. 6a. He would have granted rehearing in light of Center