Pennsylvania
Spotlight PA: PA Rejected Fewer Mail Ballots During the 2024 Primary
Carter Walker of Votebeat reports for Spotlight PA that a redesigned envelope leads to fewer rejected mail ballots, but a new type of error sticks out:
Fewer mail ballots were rejected for voter errors overall in this year’s primary election, a Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis shows, an achievement that the state credits to a modified ballot return envelope designed to help voters avoid mistakes.
But state data points to a new type of voter mistake affecting ballot rejections. And the way counties have diverged in their response to this error has opened up a new avenue for litigation ahead of November’s presidential contest.
Compared with the 2023 primary, counties rejected 9.6% fewer ballots for the kinds of errors that the redesign sought to address: a missing date or signature on the return envelope, an incorrect date, or ballots returned without an inner secrecy envelope. (See the methodology for the data analysis at the bottom of this article.)
“I think it is clear that the ballot redesign resulted in fewer voters making errors,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said.
The Department of State’s redesign of the mail ballot return envelope sought to address four of the most common errors that require counties to reject ballots: a missing date, an incorrect date, a missing signature, or a ballot not returned in a secrecy envelope.