Election officials say at least 3,000 ballots in Philadelphia have errors on them and are at risk of not counting. Dozens of people lined up to get them fixed on Election Day at City Hall. NBC10’s Miguel Martinez-Valle reports.
If you turned in your mail-in ballot in Philadelphia for the 2022 midterm elections, the city is now allowing you to double check you sent it in correctly – and fix it, if need be – so that your vote counts.
For a few thousand Philadelphians who forgot to date, sign, and/or use the correct envelope for their ballot, they can go to the Board of Elections office located in City Hall to amend their ballot.
But how do residents know if they've made a mistake? On Saturday, Nov. 5, Philadelphia city commissioners released a list of people, by zip code, who made an error on their mail-in/absentee ballot.
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The mistakes include:
- Those who did not sign the ballot
- Those who did not put a date
- Those who did not put the correct date
- Those that did not use the correct envelope (called naked ballots)
Here is a searchable version of the list that was released by city.
“All these ballot submissions have the possibility of NOT being counted,” the city commissioners said in a release on their site.
The amendments must be made by the end of business hours on Election Day, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m.
The office, which normally closes at 5 p.m., stayed open until 7 p.m. Monday, but voters who had gotten in line to correct the issues after 3:45 p.m. were turned away, said Deputy Commissioner Nick Custodio, with the elections board.
It’s unclear how many ballots have been flagged across the state; Philadelphia's lists contain more than 3,500 names, almost 2,400 of which were cited for missing or incorrect dates. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to vote by mail. The number of mail-in ballots is large enough that they might matter in a close race, such as the U.S. Senate contest between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz.
Custodio said it's unclear what will happen if someone is still in line at 8 p.m. to correct a mail-in ballot issue.
Voters who were unable to travel on time or have a health disability were able to choose to have a “designated agent” to pick up or drop off a replacement ballot with a specific form from the city.
It should be noted that this is only in Philadelphia. If you reside in another part of Pennsylvania, you should contact the Board of Election officials in your county if you feel you may have incorrectly submitted your ballot.
