Incorrect, undated mail-in ballots won't be counted in Westmoreland County

Westmoreland voters will have to take extra care to ensure mail-in ballots are properly dated before being submitted for the May 16 primary.

The county’s elections board on Thursday voted to segregate and set aside returned mail ballots that are undated or include an incorrect date returned by Election Day.

“They won’t be counted,” said election bureau Director Greg McCloskey of the undated and incorrectly dated mail-in ballots.

The decision follows a recent ruling from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that affirmed a lower court decision to invalidate undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots.

In Westmoreland County, ballots must be dated between April 25 and May 16 in order to be counted, according to the ruling unanimously adopted Thursday by the elections board.

The election bureau said more than 23,000 Westmoreland voters requested mail-in ballots for this month’s primary. As of Thursday, 657 completed ballots were returned to the county.

Mail-in ballots must be returned to the courthouse by 8 p.m. May 16 to be counted, officials said.

Voters will not have an opportunity to fix any errors once ballots are received by the election bureau.

While some Pennsylvania counties, including Allegheny County, allow a process known as “ballot curing,” Westmoreland has no policy in place that offers voters an opportunity to correct mistakes prior to Election Day to ensure their ballots are counted. Westmoreland elections board members said that won’t change before the primary.

“I think with election laws constantly changing we need to have something in place for our voters,” said Westmoreland Commissioner Gina Cerilli Thrasher. “We need some uniformity because elections laws are changing.”

Thrasher, a Democrat, is not seeking reelection this year and is the lone commissioner on the elections board in 2023.

Republican incumbent Commissioners Sean Kertes and Doug Chew, who in non-election years also serve on the board, were replaced as election board members this year by Common Pleas Judges Tim Krieger and Mike Stewart.

Stewart said he was not in favor of altering the county’s existing stance on ballot curing with the primary less than two weeks away, but it is a policy that could be considered in the future.

“The time to draft a new policy is something we couldn’t do in this time frame,” Stewart said.

Krieger declined to comment when asked if he supported a ballot curing policy.