A Pennsylvania court ruled that absentee ballots in Philadelphia with missing or incorrect dates should be counted in the Nov. 5 election despite a prohibition in state law, but advocates are waiting for the final word on the dispute from the state Supreme Court.

The stakes are potentially significant in the key swing state because 2.1 million requests for absentee ballots were approved and nearly 1.5 million have been returned through Wednesday, according to state Secretary of State Al Schmidt. The portion with missing or wrong dates won’t be known until the ballots are processed, but advocates say mistakes are decreasing as problems with the ballots are publicized.

A state law prohibits counting ballots without a date or with an incorrect date. The Republican National Committee appealed a Philadelphia Board of Elections decision to count 69 ballots with date mistakes in a September special election for two state House seats.

Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote for the 3-2 majority Wednesday the ballots should be counted despite “meaningless dating provisions” in state law. She said multiple state and federal courts have determined that the dating provisions are meaningless because they do not establish fraud, voter eligibility or whether the ballot was returned on time.

But Judge Matthew Wolf, one of two judges who disagreed with the ruling, wrote that the decision risked causing confusion on the eve of the general election.

The RNC asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to review the case because the high court already ruled in September and October that ballots without dates or mistaken dates shouldn’t be counted.

Marian Schneider, senior policy counsel for voting rights at the ACLU in Pennsylvania, said election officials in Philadelphia expect to count absentee ballots on Election Day despite missing or incorrect dates unless the high court acts. She said the dispute could be resolved after the election.

“Stay tuned,” Schneider said. “I do not expect this to be the last word on this issue. To the extent that it’s not resolved before the election, there will probably be proceedings after the election with regard to specific provisional ballots.”

Deborah Hinchey, state director of the advocacy group All Voting is Local, said there has been a massive decrease in mistakes on ballots as voters become more familiar with the forms. Pennsylvania adopted mail voting in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, she said.

“We are seeing errors being way, way down,” Hinchey said.