Few mail-in ballots rejected in Greene
Mike Jones|Greene County Messenger
Election officials in Greene County estimated the number of mail-in or absentee ballots rejected in the April 23 primary was in the “low teens.”
Ballots can be rejected if they are missing signatures or have issues with the date, and are in Washington County.
In Greene and Fayette counties, however, elections workers notify voters who made mistakes on their ballot envelopes to come to the county offices in person to correct any errors so their vote would be counted.
In Greene County, none of those who filed flawed ballots came into the office to cure their ballot. Greene County elections workers sent a list of names of people who had their ballots rejected to the two local party committees, giving them the opportunity to contact the voters to inform them of the issues.
The ballot curing process was relatively effective in Fayette County, where elections officials there said more than half of the 81 defective ballots were corrected by voters and counted.
Elections workers in Fayette County sent a letter to any voter who failed to sign or date the envelope, and also emailed or called to notify people about any issues. The major flaws there also involved dates, with 32 ballots that had no date and 24 with the wrong date, along with another 15 that had no signatures or dates.
Forty-one voters corrected their ballots, according to the election bureau.
Nearly 300 mail-in or absentee ballots were not counted in Washington County.
Out of the 286 ballots that were received by the elections office but not counted, 251 contained errors that could have been fixed by voters had the county’s elections board permitted that.
According to the election office’s figures, 185 of the ballots – the vast majority of the ones with flaws – were signed but either had no date, an incomplete date or an incorrect date, meaning they could not be counted due to state election laws. Another 52 ballots were neither signed nor dated.