Ballots with errors will be 'cured' in Pa. but it's up to counties to allow a remedy

Nov. 8—HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania voters who submitted mail-in ballots for Tuesday's election and made a technical error — forgetting to write a date on the return envelope, for instance — could get such mistakes corrected and have their ballots counted.

That all depends, however, on the county in which those voters live.

"If you learn that your mail-in ballot did contain a technical error and your county won't allow you to fix it, then you should go to your polling place on election day and ask for a provisional ballot," Leigh Chapman, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of State, said Monday.

Provisional ballots are recorded while election officials determine whether they should be counted. Rejected mail-in ballots are among the qualifying factors for provisional ballots.

The commonwealth allows no-excuse, mail-in voting for all registered voters. For today's election, 1.44 million mail-ballot applications were processed and 1.12 million returned as of early Monday. The approximate 319,000 outstanding ballots should be turned in by hand before the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline.

Pennsylvania law doesn't expressly permit or prevent ballot curing. The process allows county election officials to notify voters of the opportunity to correct minor mistakes on ballots: a missing signature or incorrect date on the return envelope, or a missing secrecy envelope that leads to a "naked ballot."

The Commonwealth Court filed an opinion on Sept. 29 denying a Republican-mounted attempt at a preliminary injunction, sought to block ballot curing this fall. In the opinion, the court said that counties have broad authority within the Election Code to "implement such procedures at their discretion" to protect the right to vote.

The opinion was affirmed by the state Supreme Court on Oct. 21, but the matter was returned to the lower court for further litigation.

A missing secrecy envelope or one mistakenly marked — secrecy envelopes must be left blank — could void a ballot. Missing signatures, wrong dates or missing dates on the return envelope could do the same.

The state Supreme Court, in separate litigation, ruled recently that county election officials must not count any ballots that have missing or incorrect dates on the return envelopes. Such ballots must be separated from the other ballots and held in a county's possession in the likely scenario of further legal challenges.

Two federal lawsuits filed Friday and Monday, respectively, seek to overturn the ruling, saying that blocking ballots based on technical requirements violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as reported by The Associated Press.

Philadelphia and Allegheny counties are among the counties that allow ballot curing. Both counties published on their websites the names of thousands of voters who submitted mail-in ballots with date errors. Voters would be allowed to fix the errors.

It's not just the large counties that allow curing.

Crawford County and Cambria County are among those affording opportunities to voters to correct technical errors. As of late Monday morning, Crawford County had 50 ballots that hadn't been cured; Cambria had 45.

"We contact them one time and provide them an opportunity to come in," Crawford County Commissioner Chris Soff said. "If the ballot remains incorrectly dated or undated, then based on current guidance it won't be counted."

Chapman, Pennsylvania's top election official, said Monday that surveys were sent to all 67 counties asking for replies to indicate the total count of ballots received with dating errors as well as the totals by political party. She said the commonwealth's current statewide election system isn't capable of collecting such data. She did not know how many counties are curing ballots.

Northumberland County is not. Neither is Somerset County. The former had 14 undated/misdated mail-in ballots while the latter had about 50, according to the respective counties' election chiefs.

Thad Hall, director of elections with Mercer County, said such ballots would be identified and segregated when election staff begin processing ballots on Election Day. Ballots with errors would not be cured, he said.

"I have confidence that the mail-in voters, almost all of them, will do them correctly," Hall said.

As for the surveys, not all counties are expected to comply.