Six days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared invalid thousands of mail-in votes in response to a Republican lawsuit by the state, Philadelphians and others in this battleground state raced to find replacements to ensure their votes would be counted on Election Day.

Kirby Smith stated that after his wife and he were informed their ballots wouldn’t count because they were missing dates, they waited in line at Philadelphia City Hall for two hours to cast new ballots. This meant they missed much of Monday’s workday.

“Oh, I’m going vote. Smith, a 59 year-old Democrat, said that it was not a question and that he viewed the court’s decision as an attempt to prevent people voting. “I will fight back.”

Over the past two decades, multiple judges have ruled that mail ballots received by eligible Pennsylvania voters on time should be counted, even if there is no date on the envelope. In October, Republicans sued to overturn that policy, claiming that it was contrary to state law. They won a favorable ruling by the state Supreme Court last Tuesday. It directed counties to not count ballots with inaccurate or missing dates.

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This decision triggered a volunteer-run effort to ensure that voters who have already returned their ballots were aware that their votes wouldn’t count if they don’t act.

This effort has been greater than anywhere else, including Philadelphia. Officials from the city published Saturday the names of over 2,000 voters who had submitted defective ballots. They urged them all to visit City Hall in order to cast a new vote in the remaining days before Election Day. Volunteers for the Democratic Party as well as community activists began to call, text and knock on doors in order to spread the word.

Voters and activists reported that Monday’s line for a replacement vote at City Hall snaked out and into the courtyard, while volunteers provided snacks and bottled waters.

“I’m lucky. Melissa Sherwood (25-year-old Democrat) said that she could have waited in line to do this. She works remotely from her home. “Some people don’t have this luxury might have looked at the line and decided no way.”

Penina Bernstein claimed she was thousands of kilometers away in Colorado when she discovered — through friends and strangers who contacted Penina via Facebook — that her ballot had been undated and wouldn’t count. She immediately made plans to return to Pennsylvania to vote.

Bernstein, 40, said that she was flying home tonight and would be back tomorrow to fix it. She added that she was not wealthy and made the trip at considerable expense.

Many volunteers stated that they had spoken with many voters, who claimed they wouldn’t be able make it to City Hall in time to fix their ballots because they are disabled or lack of transportation.

Many groups are involved in mobilizing voters to make contact. This is an ad-hoc, decentralized effort. Some voters claimed that they were contacted multiple times about their ballots, while others stated that they hadn’t heard anything until they got a call from an editor.

“We fear that there will likely be several thousand Philadelphians who have lawfully tried to vote, and their votes won’t count,” Benjamin Abella, an emergency doctor who volunteers with a group to notify voters they must fix their ballots.

Abella stated that his group and others were a grass-roots mobilization in order to make up for the government’s failure to reach out to voters individually. He stated that voters who were able to reach City Hall found very few workers available to them, which led to long waiting times. He said, “It’s really sad that this is how democracy works in America in 2022.”

Shoshanna Israel from Philadelphia’s Working Families Party said that the effort to fix voters’ ballots has grown since Sunday. 250 people have signed up for a Monday night phone-bank session. The party programmed the names of voters, their county of residence and type of ballot defect into software to create a customized script for volunteers who contact voters.

A number of voters stated to The Post that they hadn’t received notification from the city. Nick Custodio (a deputy city commissioner) said that Philadelphia officials sent a robocall to voters with numbers they knew. He said that they are focusing on tomorrow’s election, but he did not mention any other details.

Officials from the City had stated that replacement elections could be cast at City Hall up to Monday, 5 p.m. According to Abella who was present, officials informed some of the people waiting in line at 3:45 that they wouldn’t be able to vote before the closing time.

Some people were upset by the decision and sheriff’s deputy arrived to enforce it. Seth Bluestein (a Republican City Commissioner) wrote on Twitter that it was “disgrace” for voters to be forced into trying to cure their ballots last-minute. He wrote that city officials “are doing their best to assist as many voters as they can with as little time as possible and as few resources as possible.”

Pennsylvania counties may not notify voters if their mail ballots are defective and allow them to submit replacements. The courts have found that the state law doesn’t require counties to notify voters when their mail ballots are defective, but it does allow them to do so.

Officials in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh’s home, posted more than 1,000 names on Monday of voters who had incorrectly or undated ballots. According to city officials, just over 100 people cured their ballots Monday.

Darrin Kelly is the president of the Pittsburgh-area AFL/CIO-affiliate. He said that his members make up 147 of those voters whose ballots were set aside. His volunteer phone-bankers had reached about 100 of these voters by Monday at 5 p.m. and were expected to reach all by Monday night.

Kelly said that “the most important thing in life is to protect our democracy and make sure everyone has the chance to vote.” He guessed that many of his fellow Democrats are Kelly’s members.

A citizen asked the Lancaster County Elections Board Monday to notify voters who cast invalid ballots and allow them the right to vote another. He claimed that doing so would disenfranchise neighbors. One board member said that he was willing to do so, while the other two disagreed.

Joshua G. Parsons (a county commissioner) said that he has never cured Lancaster County ballots. He is also a member the board. “It’s a questionable procedure.”

Republicans sued Monroe County in northeastern Pennsylvania last week to stop officials inspecting mail ballots prior to Election Day. This was the first step in the county’s efforts to ensure voters who have returned ballots that were incomplete or missing dates or signatures had the opportunity to cast a new ballot. A