“Whatever they thought this would accomplish in terms of changing voter behavior, it didn’t change a thing,” he said, except that counties had to buy new envelopes.īerks County set aside 91 mail-in primary ballots for having incorrect return envelope dates, 32 for lacking a date and 129 for not being signed or having someone - typically a spouse - sign another’s ballot. Half of those were invalidated because the voter did not write the last two digits of the year. This month, Lycoming set aside 48, among them 22 with incorrect dates. “And there’s simply no denying that the design of these envelopes has created a new way to record a date that instantly became a huge percentage of all the incorrect dates.”ĭuring the 2022 primary, Lycoming County set aside 49 mail ballots. “I’m sure there may be some counties out there that are choosing to count these, but there are also a lot that aren’t,” Lehman said. Lycoming County is not following that advice, and county Elections Director Forrest Lehman said his experience during the primary suggests the changes have not helped get more votes counted. Votebeat Pennsylvania reported Monday that a top state election administrator told counties in an email last week they should count ballots “if the date written on the ballot can reasonably be interpreted to be ‘the day upon which (the voter) completed the declaration.’” That will help determine whether the new design did more harm than good. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said at an election night news conference that his agency will be following the county-by-county vote tabulation to see how many ballots get thrown out as a result. The groups and individuals who sued to challenge the requirement are currently asking the full 3rd Circuit to reconsider the matter.

Circuit Court of Appeals panel’s decision last month that upheld the date mandate. The primary was the first use of the revamped form on the back of return envelopes that was unveiled late last year amid litigation over whether ballots are valid when they arrive to be counted inside envelopes that do not contain accurate, handwritten dates.

(AP) - A form Pennsylvania voters must complete on the outside of mail-in ballot return envelopes has been redesigned, but that did not prevent some voters from failing to complete it accurately for this week’s primary, and some votes will not count as a result, election officials said.

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