PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge ruled Monday that Pennsylvania counties cannot reject mail ballots simply because a voter failed to date or put a wrong date on the ballot’s outer envelope.

Judge Susan Baxter of Pennsylvania’s Western District found that the state’s dating requirement for mail ballots violated voters’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and therefore could not be enforced.

In a 21-page ruling Baxter said Pennsylvania’s law served no governmental purpose for the state.

“Since there is no evidence that the date requirement serves any state interest, even a slight burden on voting rights cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny,” she wrote

Baxter’s ruling, though significant, is almost certainly to be appealed to a higher court as part of a years-long battle over some of Pennsylvania’s most extensively litigated ballots.

Under current Pennsylvania, law voters must sign and date the outer envelope of their mail ballot in order for it to be counted.

Election officials across Pennsylvania have persistently said the date on the ballot serves no practical purpose as they rely instead on postmarks to confirm receipt of the ballot. But to follow state law, county officials have rejected thousands of ballots each year cast by otherwise eligible voters.

Democrats and voting rights activists have spent years working to throw out the requirement arguing it needlessly disenfranchises voters. Republicans, however, have defended the law arguing that the Pennsylvania General Assembly included it for a reason and that the legislative intent should be respected.

In the last four years, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected efforts to overturn the date requirement on procedural grounds and federal appeals court judges upheld the requirement in a previous case. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced that they would review yet another case on the matter.

Adam Bonin, an attorney who represented voters and Sen. John Fetterman’s 2022 campaign in the case before Baxter Monday, said Baxter’s ruling was a good step forward. But he would not yet tell voters to stop writing dates on their ballots as appeals remain possible.

“The court got it right,” Bonin said. “Especially finding that there is no purpose in this requirement, there just isn’t.”

The Pennsylvania Republican Party and Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling and potential appeals. The organizations, however, have repeatedly appealed rulings in state and federal court that overturned the state law.

If Republicans appeal again, Baxter’s ruling could be blocked before it is applied in May’s primary elections.

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