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    • Heal the ballot? Voters in Nevada and other states can still fix voting flaws
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    Heal the ballot? Voters in Nevada and other states can still fix voting flaws

    Pabio Posted on

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    Ballots cannot get sick, but after an election, many voters must “cure” their ballots to make sure they are counted. If you voted by mail or provisional ballot, election officials will inspect it to make sure it contains all the necessary information — and they often find that it doesn’t.

    For example, a state election official might find that the signature on an absentee ballot does not match the one the election office has on file. A voter who shows up at the polls without the proper photo ID may fill out a provisional ballot which will not be counted until you present the correct ID to the election office.

    In the closely watched swing state of Nevada, on the Monday before the election, nearly 14,000 ballots required signatures, according to Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s office. In the county surrounding Albequerque, New Mexico, hundreds of ballots were rejected, according to a local news station.

    “It is extremely important that voters are aware of the potential need to care for their ballots, to ensure that their voices are heard and their votes are counted,” Aguilar said in a press release. “This is especially important for younger voters who may not have an experienced signature or for older voters whose signatures have changed over time. »

    Ahtar Hassebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, told USA TODAY on Nov. 5 that he expected to see fewer ballots needed to remedy the problem. “Everyone is working to get that number down,” he said. “It’s just part of the process here.”

    As of Monday, there were a total of 9,956 ballots that still needed to be processed across the state of Nevada, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

    Nationwide, about 550,000 mail-in ballots were rejected in the 2022 congressional elections, according to News from Ballotpedia. When states have policies that allow citizens to remedy their absentee ballots, fewer ballots are rejected, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    The good news is most states often offer the option of repairing or fixing a ballot. This usually involves returning to the election office within a specified time frame to provide the necessary information.

    Election offices often contact voters to inform them of the need for healing, but this may not be the case, meaning voters may need to follow up on their own to ensure that their ballots are counted. Here is an overview of the situations in which voters might be required to show up to process their ballot.

    Do I need to fix my ballot?

    If you are voting in a state that requires voter ID and you were unable to show one at the polling places, you may have had the option to vote by provisional ballot, a type of ballot ballot set aside from the rest of the votes while election officials decide whether it should be counted. These voters will likely need to return with proper identification to process their ballot.

    If your state does a signature verification – matching the signature on a ballot envelope to another signature the election office has on file – your ballot could be rejected. If this happens, you may need to return to the elections office to process your absentee ballot so that your vote can be counted.

    How long do I have to process my ballot?

    State laws vary depending on how much time voters have to process their ballots. Here are the deadlines in certain states where voters still have time to process their ballots for the November 5 presidential election.

    • In Nevada, absentee ballot signatures must be corrected by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
    • In Texas, voters who have an acceptable photo ID but did not present it at the polls have until six days after the election to present an acceptable photo ID to the state voter registry. their county, according to the secretary of state’s office.
    • In Coloradovoters have until the night of the eighth day after the election to cure their ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.

    Is it too late to fix my ballot?

    In many states, deadlines for remedying the ballot have passed. Among the states:

    Contributor: Terry Collins.

    Pabio
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