What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?
Election workers reconstruct or 鈥渄uplicate鈥 ballots that are damaged or improperly marked to preserve voters鈥 intent. This is necessary if a ballot has, say, a coffee stain or tear 鈥 or if a voter circled a candidate rather than filled in a bubble to make their selection 鈥 and therefore can鈥檛 be read by a machine.
While the process might sound strange to those not familiar with election administration, it鈥檚 a legitimate and longstanding way to ensure voters have their votes counted, according to experts. It鈥檚 also widely used to translate votes cast by those overseas or in the military onto ballots that can be scanned.
The involves transcribing a voter鈥檚 choices from the damaged ballot onto a new, clean ballot that can be scanned and counted. How exactly that process is handled varies across states.
In many cases, it鈥檚 done by bipartisan teams of poll workers, said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. That鈥檚 not the case everywhere, though it鈥檚 common that it鈥檚 performed by at least two people 鈥 even two staff members 鈥 said Jennifer Morrell, a partner at The Elections Group, which works with election officials to improve processes.
Many key states in the midterm elections this year 鈥 such as , , and 鈥 call for the ballot duplication process to be done by individuals representing different political parties.
There are some cases in which mistakes on a ballot can鈥檛 simply be corrected because it鈥檚 impossible to confirm the voter鈥檚 intent. For example, sometimes a voter makes too many selections in a particular contest, or leaves a stray mark that doesn鈥檛 clearly indicate their chosen candidate.
The rules for such ballots depend on jurisdiction. In some places, a ballot with a mistake in one race would simply exclude that race, but in other places, none of the voter鈥檚 choices would be counted, Burden said in an email. He added that whether the original ballot is destroyed or retained depends on the state.
Experts say the ballot duplication process is generally done in view of the public or poll watchers. Many states also require that the original and ballot duplicates be labeled and assigned corresponding numbers, creating a paper trail between the two.
have fueled false claims.
In 2020, footage from a publicly available video stream showed Delaware County, Pennsylvania, from damaged ballots to clean ballots for scanning. But social media posts shared cropped footage, which didn鈥檛 show the bipartisan observers present, and baselessly alleged the video was proof of voter fraud.
鈥淏allot duplication is a standard part of the election administration process and has been for many years,鈥 Burden said. 鈥淚t is essential for many people who vote by mail whose ballots are not readable by machines, including many overseas and military voters who cast ballots by different means that must be copied onto standard paper ballots.鈥
If a voter makes a mistake or their ballot is damaged before they turn it in, they can also follow the instructions provided by local officials to request a new one, said Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor for the elections program at the nonpartisan Democracy Fund. The original ballot will be nullified and only one will count.
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