The Republican National Committee and allied party organizations have petitioned for certiorari in RNC v. Eakin, No. 25-962, asking the Supreme Court to reverse the Third Circuit’s invalidation of Pennsylvania’s longstanding requirement that mail-in voters date their ballot-return envelopes. The petition poses a foundational question: whether non-discriminatory voting rules that impose only ordinary burdens should be reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny rather than the Anderson-Burdick balancing test.
Case: Republican National Committee v. Bette Eakin, No. 25-962
Lower Court: Third Circuit
Docketed: February 13, 2026
Status: Pending — Response due March 16, 2026
Counsel for Petitioner: John M. Gore, Jones Day
Question Presented: Whether a non-discriminatory rule imposing the usual burdens of voting is constitutional under rational-basis review.
Pennsylvania has required voters to date the declaration on mail-ballot return envelopes for decades, a requirement retained when the legislature enacted universal mail-in voting through Act 77 in 2019. During the 2022 midterms, over 10,000 ballots were rejected for date-related defects. Respondent Bette Eakin, whose ballot was among those discarded, sued all 67 county election boards. The district court granted summary judgment on her constitutional claims, and a unanimous Third Circuit panel affirmed in August 2025, holding under Anderson-Burdick that Pennsylvania’s interests in election administration and fraud prevention did not justify the rejection of otherwise valid ballots—especially absent any notice or cure opportunity for affected voters.
The full Third Circuit denied rehearing in a closely divided vote, with six judges dissenting. Judge Bove’s dissent characterized the date requirement as one of the least burdensome aspects of voting imaginable and warned that aggressive judicial balancing of commonplace election rules risks turning courts into instruments of political warfare. The cert petition leans heavily on this reasoning.
The petition highlights a deepening circuit split over Anderson-Burdick’s reach: the Seventh Circuit has declined to apply the framework to mail-voting rules, while the Third Circuit here extended it aggressively. Petitioners argue the Court has not squarely addressed the test since the fractured plurality in Crawford v. Marion County (2008). The case arrives alongside Watson v. RNC, No. 24-1260, the Mississippi mail-ballot receipt deadline case set for argument this spring—together offering the Court a significant opportunity to reshape election-law doctrine heading into the 2026 midterms.