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itasteminty t1_iqvw8nw wrote

Reply to comment by all4whatnot in Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix problems with their mail ballots, state court rules by gdex86

This was a lawsuit over the ballot-cure process for mail-in ballots that, for whatever reason, were deemed "tainted" and unable to be counted by law.

FWIW: In PA, the current mail-in law requires you to fill out your ballot, place the ballot inside of an inner secrecy envelope. You are not allowed to place ANY marks on the inner secrecy envelope. Place that envelope inside of an outer return envelope and sign the declaration on the outer envelope, and return the ballot. Click HERE for the official instructions on the PA voting website.

The ballots are received, outer envelope scanned, you get a notification that your ballot was received, and the secrecy envelope and ballot placed in a bin to be counted election day. (Ballots can only be opened on election day, and cannot be pre-counted, according to PA Law.)

So, issues that came up in the past:

  1. This procedure was different than in past years, so people were erroneously signing the inner envelope. Other times, they would only send the ballot in the outer envelope, or just the inner envelope (making the ballot non-countable)
  2. Due to the thickness, ballots were getting snagged in the USPS mail sorting equipment, ripping the outer return envelope, sometimes even the inner secrecy envelope.
  3. PA made the Secrecy and Mailing envelopes very close in size, so sometimes at the voting office in opening the outer envelope, they would snag the inner envelope and taint the seal on the secrecy envelope.

In any of these cases (and some others), the voting office could notify you that there is something wrong with your ballot, and you could go to the voting office, with your ID, and claim your ballot, "cure" the issue and re-submit it for processing.

It is the ballot "cure" process that they decided was somehow unfair and decided to sue over. The result of this ruling means they can continue the process as it exists.

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all4whatnot t1_iqwd6mm wrote

"Could notify you"

If I recall, there were counties that just remove them. There was no attempt to cure. But I could be wrong, this is just my recollection from the election 2 years ago.

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itasteminty t1_iqyh5d5 wrote

That is correct. But, to me I would complain to them to get them to also cure ballots, not eliminate votes. But that's just me. Fortunately I live in an area that, surprisingly has the ballot cure process available. That said, I am planning to vote in person, so it's a moot point for me, but may benefit others.

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