FILE – Allegheny County Elections Division Deputy Director Chet Harhut carries a container of mail-in ballots from a secure area at the election warehouse in Pittsburgh, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, archive)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans wasted no time appealing a Pennsylvania court decision that would relax rules for mail-in ballots, asking the state Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn a lower court opinion issued one day before.

The state and national Republican Party filed an emergency request asking justices to stay a Commonwealth Court ruling that says the envelopes voters use to mail ballots do not need to be precisely manually dated, as required by state law. .

Republican groups said that if the high court does not suspend the order it should at least modify it to say that it is not in effect for the vote that ends Tuesday.

The Commonwealth Court, in a 3-2 decision, said 69 mail-in ballots that were missing or inaccurately dated should be counted in two Philadelphia state House special elections held in September.

The justices emphasized that they were ruling on an election that has already occurred (and involved unopposed candidates), but there is uncertainty about how it could apply to the ongoing election. Pennsylvania is the largest swing state in the tight presidential race, and its voters are also holding a seat in the U.S. Senate, three state offices and most of the legislature.

The rules for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have been the subject of frequent litigation in state and federal courts since the Legislature allowed absentee and mail-in ballots for all registered voters in 2019, on the eve of the pandemic. In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the requirement for an exact handwritten date was enforceable, and in April the state redesigned the envelopes to make it harder for voters to make mistakes on the dates. Last month, the state Supreme Court rejected an attempt to eliminate the appointment requirement and said Oct. 5 that it would not revisit the issue.

The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party argued that the decision was made too close to Election Day, that county election boards should have been allowed to weigh in, and that the state Supreme Court recently ruled otherwise. on the same topic.

“Without this court’s intervention, county boards will likely count undated ballots that the General Assembly has said should not be counted.” they wrote in the filing filed Thursday. They cautioned that the uniform date requirement can be applied in different ways across the state.

“There is no excuse, none, for the majority to rush to override the General Assembly date requirement less than a week before the 2024 general election.” they wrote in the emergency request for extraordinary aid.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court gave other parties until early Friday to respond.

In two decisions over the past two months, the state Supreme Court left the outer envelope date mandate in place and indicated that the high court did not want existing laws or procedures to change substantially. “during the period pending an ongoing election.”

The Commonwealth Court majority said that the requirement of precise dates on outer envelopes, which are not necessary to determine whether a ballot arrived on time, runs counter to the state constitutional provision that elections must be free and equal and that no civil or military power can interfere with them. he “free exercise of the right to vote.”