If you requested a mail in ballot in Allegheny county and you haven’t mailed it in yet, stop what you’re doing right now and check your ballot carefully. It turns out that approximately 29,000 ballots have the wrong municipality/district/precinct on them. Some guy who lives in North Versailles was just about to send his ballot in when he noticed that the voting location info on his ballot was wrong. They had him down for McKeesport.
The problem appears to be with the vendor who was contracted to print and mail the ballots, Midwest Direct. They’re also responsible for not mailing ballots to a chunk of Westmoreland County as well. (Wait, do really care about them? {{sigh}}. God is testing us.)
The ballots affected in Allegheny county were mailed on 9/28/2020. If that was the date yours was mailed out, the board of elections may discard your ballot and a new ballot will need to be mailed to you again.
I checked my election ballot status at paveoterservices.pa.gov. Sure enough, my ballot was mailed on 9/28/2020. But I also took a photo of my ballot before I stuffed it in the secrecy envelope. (I’m being anal this year). The location info is shown on the bottom of the ballot:
Then I checked that location against the Allegheny county polling places and sample ballots page. (You can also check your location from your Voter Registration Status.) All the info on my ballot for my location is correct, so I shouldn’t have to worry. But of course, I will. I’ll be following up on this to make sure that the ballot they received from me isn’t tossed.
Allegheny county has decided to print and mail the new corrected ballots and to end its contract with Midwest Direct, which has also had some issues with ballots in Ohio.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Allegheny county BOE phone is very busy tomorrow. Fortunately, there are multiple election services sites this weekend that may be able to provide answers. See the table below for a location near you.
There is always the option of voting in person. You can take your ballot to your polling location, have the poll worker destroy it, and then vote by machine. It will count as a regular vote, not a provisional one.
Don’t panic. Take a deep breath. Everything is going to work out. If Georgians can spend 8 hours in a line in order to vote, we can get this straightened out in time or vote in person.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
And Midwest Direct, the company that screwed up the ballots, flies an enormous Trump flag in front of its building. The brothers who own the company say it’s their right to support whoever they want.
My ballot, fortunately, seems to be okay and I plan to take it to the Boyce Park ski lodge for drop off tomorrow. If there is a crowd, then I will take it to the post office directly, after taking a picture of it.
By the way, the New York Times says Westmoreland County is critical. Nobody expects Biden to win it, but there is a lot more Democratic activity than there has been for awhile and if Biden can get a significant amount more than Hillary did, it could help him carry the state.
I was kidding about Westmoreland. Most mail in ballots are for Democrats.
But even if they don’t get their ballots by the 2 week cutoff, it’s not like they can’t vote. They just might have to do it in person.
Hey, MAG, do me a favor and let me know if you observed any poll watchers at Boyce today. Actually, I might drive past the site today to compare it to my experience last week.
There was a law suit filed by some Republicans yesterday that demanded the right to observe the election sites in Allegheny county. My guess is they are going to concentrate on the Homewood site but for Penn Hills voters, it’s just as easy to go to Boyce. So let me know if you see anything that strikes you as intimidating. .
RD, I’m not sure if I’m going to make it today. Woke up with sore throat and congestion. Probably just sinuses, but I don’t want to take a chance on exposing anyone else. If it clears up in the next hour or so, I’ll go. Otherwise I’ll wait til tomorrow.
You do need a car to get to Boyce, so that’s one reason for poll watchers to concentrate onHomewood.
I was a poll watcher for John Kerry, but our mission was to enable people to vote, not stop them. There was a huge mixup that year and many people were not showing up on the registers we were supposed to make sure they got provisional ballots. Unfortunately the polls all ran out of provisional ballots early, and the numbers we were supposed to call for problems were overwhelmed and didn’t answer. It was a huge mess.
Grrrr. I just realized when I saw my screen name (my initials) in your response how close it looks to Trump’s mating call. Where was my head??