Counties vary on notifying voters of mistakes in mail ballots, says ACLU
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE - Election signs posted outside the Columbia Hose firehouse in Shenandoah in 2017.
POTTSVILLE – Don’t make a mistake on your mail ballot in Schuylkill or Columbia counties — your vote won’t count and you’ll never know, according to the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
They conducted a county-by-county analysis of whether or not county elections offices notify voters about errors and allow them to correct the errors before polls close on Election Day.
Most do, both counties that lean Democratic and Republican.
Nearly half of counties allow voters to correct disqualifying errors, including a mistake on the declaration envelope or a missing secrecy envelope. In our area, Luzerne County does this.
Ten other counties upload ballot information into the Department of State’s SURE system which then notifies voters they can vote in-person with a provisional ballot to preserve their right to vote. Northumberland and Carbon both do so.
Schuylkill and Columbia Counties provide no such notification. Unless you realize you made a mistake after you send off the ballot, you will not receive notice or an opportunity to make it right and, thus, have your vote count.
“Eligible voters have the right to cast a ballot, in person or by mail, and have their ballot counted and certified,” said ACLU-PA Executive Director Mike Lee. “In the five years since Pennsylvanians’ voting rights expanded to include no-excuse voting by mail, we’ve seen counties try to skirt the expansion in voting access by applying needless rules and harsh punishments for meaningless errors. These policies have real impact on real voters, and we know that thousands have been disenfranchised because of them.
The data, presented on the ACLU of Pennsylvania’s website in an interactive map, shows voters what they can expect in the event they make correctable errors on their mail ballots this year.
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