State: Call your election office if you think your mail-in ballot has technical errors
Counties under no legal obligation to tell voters their ballots won't count.
This story was updated to reflect a new federal lawsuit seeking to allow counting undated ballots and a decision by a Monroe County judge to let the county election office review ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day.
The Pennsylvania Department of State is urging mail-in voters to be proactive if they think they returned ballots with technical mistakes such as missing dates that would void their votes.
That’s because counties are allowed but not legally required to inform voters of mistakes or permit them to fix errors.
During a press conference Monday, Leigh Chapman, acting secretary of the department that oversees elections, said mail-in voters have ways to make sure their returned ballots count.
“If you are concerned you made a technical error, I urge you to call your county election office as soon as possible to discuss your options,” Chapman said.
Pennsylvania ballot numbers
Returned: 1,113,926
Mail Ballots Requested: 1,436,536
Source: United States Elections Project
Chapman said voters who are denied a chance to fix a ballot mistake on a ballot returned on time should go to their polling place and ask to fill out a provisional ballot. She said county election boards, which accept or reject ballots, also make decisions on counting provisional ballots.
Fueling the state’s advice is the recent state Supreme Court order directing the 67 counties in Pennsylvania not to count but to set aside mail-in ballots that lack dates or have incorrect dates – defined as those falling outside the range of Sept. 19 to Nov. 8.
The order came as the court was also deadlocked 3-3 on whether not counting undated or wrongly dated outer envelopes violates the Civil Rights Act. Court observers say the order is setting up an eventual U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Indeed, Democracy Docket reported that Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is the Democratic candidate for senator, and others filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, saying the order not to count undated ballots that were filed on time violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act by denying an individual the right to vote for a reason that is not material to determining that individual’s eligibility.
The NAACP, the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters and others filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the state and counties, calling the rejection of undated for wrongly dated outer envelopes a civil rights violation.
Also on Friday, the Monroe County Republican Committee and others filed a lawsuit alleging that the county Board of Elections and its two commissioners are illegally pre-canvassing mail-in and absentee ballots ahead of the state deadline.
Under state law, pre-canvassing – readying ballots for counting – is not supposed to start until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
On Monday, county Judge Arthur L. Zulick denied the GOP request that would have prevented election workers from contacting voters before 7 a.m. Tuesday to fix defective ballots, such as a missing date on the outer envelope, according to Democracy Docket.
The judge’s order and finding of facts noted that the lawsuit was filed on Friday, four days before the election and only hours after county election workers “notified 150 to 175 voters that their ballots were cancelled and after they were offered the chance to cast a vote that would count.”
Zulick wrote, “To interfere with the [election office] action at the 11th hour would create additional uncertainty about the affected voters' right or ability to vote.”
The judge’s opinion also noted that “it has always been the policy of the Monroe County Election Board to allow a voter to come into the office to correct a defective absentee or mail-in ballot.”
Mail-in ballots requested
Bucks: 98,205
Carbon: 5,394
Lehigh: 41,512
Monroe: 17,625
Northampton: 40,724
Source: United States Elections Project
Chapman said she did not know how many counties allow ballots to be cured, but noted that Philadelphia and Allegheny counties already have released lists of names of voters of issues with their ballots.
Lehigh and Northampton counties agreed to notify voters returning naked ballots – those without a secrecy envelope – as part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit over the results of the Democratic May 17 primary race in the state’s 14th Senate District.
In that race, 42 votes separated the winner Nick Miller, an Allentown School Board member, over Tara Zrinksi, a Northampton County commissioner.
At last count, Becky Bartlett, Northampton County’s deputy director of administration/public information officer, said the county has received 25 ballots without signatures, 226 that are undated and 37 that are wrongly dated.
Her Lehigh County counterpart, Tim Benyo, did not return an email request for such data.
Statewide, 1,436,536 mail-in ballots were requested and 1,113,926 were returned as of Nov. 6, according to the United States Elections Project, which tracks up-to-date election data from states.
Mail-in ballots by party affiliation
Democrat: 984,847
Republican: 302,842 77.7
None/minor: 148,264
In Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties, which make up the bulk of the 7th Congressional District, 87,630 ballots were requested.
Mail-in ballots, which were allowed under 2019’s Act 77, have already been the subject of multiple lawsuits. Republican-backed groups have sued to force Pennsylvania to follow the law such as writing a date on an outer envelope while voting rights advocates say minor technicalities disenfranchise voters – particularly Democrats and senior citizens.
Mail-in-ballot requests by Democrats far outnumber those by Republicans – 984,847 versus 302,842 for tomorrow’s election.
At the same time, mail-in ballots are highly favored by people ages 65 and older. A total of 554,978 of voters in that category in the state requested them, the largest by age cohort.
Pa. Mail-in Ballots By Age
18-25: 62,184
26-40: 123,127
41-65: 373,588
Over 65: 554,978
Source: United States Elections Project
The specter of more lawsuits led the Department of State over the weekend to ask county election offices to provide a party break-down of mail-in ballots that lack dates or have incorrect dates.
At the press conference, Chapman justified her request for a party breakdown – one that led some counties to rebuff the idea.
She said the state needs the information because there is already at least one lawsuit in the pipeline and more are expected post-election. The state’s database system does not allow it to readily collect such information, she said.
Chapman gave a Monday deadline for compliance, and said the state would follow up with those who didn’t supply the data.