Pennsylvania ballots are virtually prepared. Right here’s why they appear completely different this yr.

Voters in the important thing battleground of Pennsylvania could discover their ballots look completely different this yr, because the state prepares to deploy a brand new design within the common election for the primary time this yr that goals to cut back the variety of rejected votes.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt formally certified the state’s ballot for this fall’s presidential election Monday after the state Supreme Court docket upheld a ruling that rejected third-party candidate Cornel West’s effort to look on it, which was the ultimate excellent authorized difficulty for the poll.

That cleared the best way for counties to start out making ready, printing and distributing mail ballots to those that request them. As soon as they’re out there, voters will be capable to head to their native election workplaces and request and solid mail ballots in individual.

The brand new poll design, which Pennsylvania officers introduced final yr and was first used on this yr’s major election, was created with the hope of lowering voter errors in a state the place tens of 1000’s of ballots have been rejected lately. Errors have included forgetting to jot down the date or leaving the so-called secrecy sleeve out and submitting a “bare poll.”

In line with state officers, 21,800 mail ballots have been rejected within the 2020 common election, and about 23,700 mail ballots have been rejected within the 2022 common election. Most rejected ballots are tossed out for arriving after Election Day, however 1000’s have been rejected for lacking signatures and related paperwork errors.

In a vital swing state usually determined by tight margins — Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by simply 81,000 in Pennsylvania in 2020 — rejected ballots can basically form a race’s final result. Whereas Pennsylvania created no-excuse mail voting in 2019 with bipartisan assist, the method wasn’t enacted till the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when Trump baselessly seized on mail voting as rife with fraud.

Pennsylvania’s mail ballots have as soon as once more been the topic of a significant election-year authorized battle. Voting rights advocates went to courtroom to attempt to remove a requirement that on-time ballots with lacking or inaccurate dates be tossed out, a provision Republicans defended as a element of election integrity. The state Supreme Court docket ruled last week that mail ballots with improper dates cannot be counted.

Pennsylvania’s new poll design will embrace new directions and a yellow secrecy sleeve to remind voters to place their ballots inside it. Some counties could put gap punches by poll envelopes, too, making it simpler to identify “bare ballots” forward of time; the yellow sleeves needs to be viewable by the hole-punch home windows if the ballots are mailed correctly.

In hope of stopping voters from writing their birthdays within the date line, the year will be filled in.

In Pennsylvania, counties are permitted to let their voters rectify poll errors like bare ballots or lacking signatures, however they aren’t required to. Officers in Dauphin County, residence to Harrisburg, as an illustration, announced a plan this month to permit voters to repair their mail poll errors.

Looking forward to November, clerks in Pennsylvania nonetheless won’t be able to process any mail ballots earlier than Election Day, which means it might once more take days to depend them.