Experts: There’s time to fix ballots

Thousands of mail-in votes were rejected for mistakes

Thousands of mail-in ballots sent in by Florida residents have been initially rejected for signature errors and other mistakes, but election experts say there is still plenty of time to make those votes count.

The problem is that millions of Floridians are voting by mail for the first time because of concerns about the coronavirus and election security in general.

In a state where the margins for victory have been razor-thin for decades, rejected ballots could easily add up and be decisive in the race between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“[With] the historic numbers of vote-by-mail ballots coming in, there’s a potential of tens of thousands of ballots being rejected for a mismatched or missing signature,” said Daniel A. Smith, the chair of political science at the University

of Florida and a state elections expert.

But, he said, “that will be counter acted by the attention that is being placed on [fixing signature mistakes] by the parties, the candidates and voting rights groups. And that is a big difference from four years ago.”

Voters still have plenty of time this year to fix any error with their ballot, with the deadline extended by the Legislature to two days after Election Day. Some elections supervisors are confident that the message is getting out to voters.

A moving target

About 18,000 mail-in ballots were rejected in March’s presidential primaries, with another estimated 33,000 rejected in the August primary.

In the ongoing general election, the numbers on rejections are constantly shifting in real-time, with ballots removed from the rejected list as they’re “cured,” or fixed, by voters. So the data on rejections are more snapshots of where things stand at any given hour on any given day.

On Wednesday, Smith said, about 14,600 ballots out of the more than 3 million mail-in ballots cast so far had been rejected and not yet fixed since vote-by-mail began earlier this month, according to numbers reported by counties.

That includes about 9,700 mail-in ballots with signature issues and another 4,900 with other “voter-caused errors” such as the wrong envelope and other mistakes.

Whites had an initial rejection rate of 0.3%, while both Blacks and Hispanics had rejection rates of 0.8%, Smith said.

“And a half-percent difference is big,” he added, amounting to potentially thousands of ballots.

Those responsible for examining signature sin Florida tend to be elections officials who mayor may not be trained in the latest signature identification techniques, according to the advocacy group Access the Vote. Washington state, for example, has two-person signature teams for each county trained by law enforcement.

Broward County

On Friday, Bro ward County had 353 mail ballots that had been flagged out of about 315,000 that had been cast.

Of those 353 ballots, 208 had no signature, 40 had signature mismatches, 77 had been signed by someone other than the voter and 28 had been signed by a voter who had moved away.

Those ballots, though, still could be counted if the voters submit an affidavit fixing the issue by Nov. 5.

Miami-Dade County

As of Friday, Miami-Dade had identified 2,472 mails ballots with no signature and 716 with mismatched signatures out of roughly 328,200 cast.

Palm Beach County

Palm Beach County did not have updated figures available Friday. As of Oct. 16, 179 ballots were missing signatures and another 123 ballots had a signature that differed from the one of file. At that point, about 207,000 mail ballots had been submitted.

How to fix your ballot

Is something wrong with your mail-in ballot? Here’s how to fix it.

The affidavit: If notified by mail or email, the office will include a copy of the affidavit you have to print and fill out. If notified by phone, you can also go online to your county elections office website to find the affidavit. Voters can also check the status of their ballot for themselves at those sites at any time.

Photo ID: After filling out the affidavit, which will include an updated version of your signature if that was the issue, you would also have to make a copy of a photo ID. That could include a Florida driver license, a military, student, retirement center, neighborhood association, public assistance ID, or veteran health ID card, among others. If you don’t have any of those, a current utility bill, bank statement, or government check or document works.

Head to the elections office: Take the completed affidavit and the ID copy to your county elections office. In Palm Beach County, the main office is at 240 S. Military Trail, West Palm Beach; in Broward County, the main office is at 115 S. Andrews Ave ., Room 102, Fort Lauderdale; and in Miami-Dade County, at 2700 NW 87th Ave., Miami.

Don’ t wait to mail or drop off your ballot: If your ballot is rejected because it arrived too late, after 7 p.m. on Election Day, there’s nothing you can do to make it count. So if it’s less than four days before Election Day, it’ s best to just go to any open early voting site or county elections office to deliver your mail-in ballot to a dropbox.