Dallas City News

Voters interested in casting a mail ballot in the Nov. 5 presidential election can apply online through a newly redesigned, user-friendly application, the Pennsylvania Department of State announced Tuesday.

At the local level, Luzerne County’s election board is scheduled to discuss one aspect of Nov. 5 mail ballots — the printing of the year on the outer envelopes — during its Wednesday night meeting.

The redesigned online application, which is also available in Spanish and Chinese, provides clearer instructions for registered voters requesting their ballot and streamlines the submission process, the state said. It also improves the application process for military and overseas civilian voters by directing them to the federal form required to request their ballot.

A link to the online application is available pavoterservices.pa.gov.

The state also is launching the mail ballot applications two months earlier than in the last presidential election in 2020, giving voters over eight weeks of additional time to apply for their ballot, its announcement said.

Under the 2019 bipartisan state law authorizing no-excuse mail ballot voting, the deadline to apply for mail ballots is 5 p.m. Oct. 29.

“We believe the ability to apply for a mail ballot online earlier, coupled with a redesign of the online mail ballot application, are further steps in simplifying the vote-by-mail process for registered voters,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in the release.

Envelope date

As part of a state redesign of the actual mail ballots that took effect in all counties for the 2024 primary, the “20” start of the year was pre-filled on the outer return envelope. Voters were supposed to write in “24” at the end.

Luzerne County had 111 mail ballots with the last two year digits left blank. The county Election Board voted 4-1 to accept them because everything else was in order.

When the issue came up during the board’s adjudication, board Chairwoman Denise Williams said the state redesign should have printed the entire year, not only the first two digits.

Williams said Tuesday wanted to follow up with a board discussion, in part because she read a news account of one county that chose to fill in the entire year for the primary and another contemplating that action for the November general.

But county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino cautioned Tuesday that the board may be required to seek a variance from the state to make such a change. The board had obtained a variance for the primary election when it wanted to include an explanation about the county government study commission referendum with mail ballot packets, he said.

Molino also said the board should consider a pending Commonwealth Court ruling focused on the outer envelope date issue.

In the tight race for the Republican 117th House District contest, candidate Jamie Walsh filed an appeal to Commonwealth Court seeking to throw out six already-tallied mail ballots because the voters did not fill in the last two digits of the year. These six were among the 111 accepted by the board.

Walsh’s legal counsel argues a full date is required as affirmed by a 2023 Supreme Court decision.

A three-judge county court panel said the pre-printed 20 was specifically produced for the 2024 primary election and “therefore, it would stand to reason that the date, as written, could only be for the calendar year 2024.”

Walsh and incumbent Michael Cabell are currently three votes apart, with Walsh in the lead.

Two other appeals filed by Cabell are pending in Commonwealth Court. He is seeking the tallying of one paper provisional ballot and rejection of another. He also appealed a county court ruling denying the counting of Republican write-in ballots cast for him, if there are any in his race.

Wednesday’s election board meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions to attend remotely are posted under council’s authorities/boards/commissions online meetings link at luzernecounty.org.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.