WILKES-BARRE, UNITED STATES - 2020/11/04: Employee holds bundles of mail-in ballots to be counted. (Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania's elections agency sued three Republican-controlled county governments on Tuesday, seeking to force their election boards to report primary results that include ballots with undated exterior envelopes — the subject of several other lawsuits.The Department of State sued Lancaster, Berks and Fayette counties in Commonwealth Court, describing them as "outlier counties" that have not properly certified vote tallies from the May 17 election that included nominating contests for U.S.
Senate, governor and most of the Legislature.The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled May 20 that mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 county judge race in Pennsylvania.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the Senate vote-counting after the primary, three justices signed onto an opinion that said the 3rd Circuit was "very likely wrong."A Commonwealth Court judge, in a separate case that was directly about reporting this year's Senate primary election results, ruled on June 2 that county boards of election should count mail-in votes that lack the security envelopes' hand-written dates, and report vote totals both with and without those ballots.In the new case, the Department of State and acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman under Democratic Gov.