ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling last week has tasked all of the state’s 67 counties with putting aside mail-in ballots that are in undated or incorrectly dated envelopes.
And in the Lehigh Valley, with the midterm elections upon us, local officials are taking extra steps to prevent any issues when votes are tallied.
- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that counties must put aside mail-in ballots that are undated or have incorrect dates
- Northampton County has set aside nearly 300 mail-in ballots because of those issues
- Lehigh County has seen fewer than 60 mail-in ballots with these issues
- Voters are being contacted and will be able to fix these issues before the end of Election Day
Northampton County Board of Elections has set aside 60 incorrectly dated and 226 undated mail-in and absentee ballots, county spokeswoman Becky Bartlett said in an email.
Bartlett said those voters were contacted via email and a letter in the mail to tell them of their error and tell them to come into the elections board’s office and fix their ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
She also said that as votes are counted on Election Day, the Election Board "will review all provisional ballots and any ballot for which there are questions."
In Lehigh County where, recently, a similar issue saw a judicial election settled by just five votes after a series of legal challenges — county Elections Director Tim Benyo said they've seen few undated or incorrectly dated ballots so far.
Benyo said that, as of Monday afternoon, just 39 mail-in ballots were found with an incorrect date and only 17 were missing a date.
There also were four mail-in ballots with which the board had issues with a voter's signature.
The Pennsylvania Department of State has asked counties to share the data they're collecting by Monday because its automatic ballot tracking system is not designed to provide it.
Several counties have said their staff are unable to answer that request. Others have shared the numbers of undated or incorrectly dated ballots.
Election Day is Tuesday.
