May 13, 2025 By Mike Jones 4 min read

Today is the final day to request a mail-in ballot for the May 20 primary as election officials are urging voters to quickly return them.

People have until the close of business today to fill out an application in-person at their county’s elections office or by going online to vote.pa.gov to request one through the state Department of State’s website.

All ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day next Tuesday, so voters should hand deliver them to their county’s elections office at this point rather than chance them being delayed through the mail service.

While no excuse mail-in voting has been in effect in Pennsylvania since 2020, what is new this primary election is that undated or misdated ballots will be counted, unlike in the past. A 2022 ruling by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the date written on the outside envelope of a mail-in ballot is immaterial to the voting process, although a valid signature is still required to count the vote.

While the ruling has been delayed going into effect the past few election cycles, the most recent request to stay the decision was denied earlier this year, meaning undated or misdated envelopes must be counted for this primary.

“If the voter writes on the back of the ballot June 7 … we still have to count it,” Washington County Elections Director Melanie Ostrander said during the county elections board’s meeting Monday afternoon.

County solicitor Gary Sweat noted that this decision goes beyond an order handed down last year by Washington County Judge Brandon Neuman in which he ruled that voters must be informed of errors with their ballots – such as wrong dates or missing signatures – and given the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot as a backstop procedure.

“This basically goes one step further than Judge Neuman’s decision,” Sweat said about the federal appeal court’s ruling. “But this is the law of the land for the May primary.”

Neuman’s ruling is still in effect in Washington County since ballots with missing signatures on the envelopes will not be counted. Ostrander said they have received six ballots without signatures – they’ve been working to notify those voters – along with a dozen that have wrong or missing dates. All of those ballots are being segregated into a separate pile in case there is another court ruling on the matter.

“We are going to segregate them (apart) from the others in case there is another ruling,” Ostrander told the elections board, which is made up of county Commissioners Nick Sherman, Electra Janis and Larry Maggi.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Sweat responded. “It makes it easier from a record keeping standpoint. You never know.”

In Fayette County, voters there are given an opportunity to “cure” their ballots that have mistakes, meaning the federal appeals court might not have as much of an impact. Still, Fayette County Elections Director Mary Beth Kuznik said they’re also segregating those ballots in case there is another court ruling that once again changes the process.

“We’re doing the same thing in past elections,” Kuznik said Monday. “We’re giving (voters) the opportunity to come in and fix the mistake in case the (court ruling) is overturned. We’re doing exactly what we’ve done in the past.”

Greene County Elections Director Kierra Cannon said they’re also keeping mail-in ballots with mistakes separated from others in case there are additional rulings in the waning days before or even after the primary election. County officials there plan to discuss the matter further at Wednesday’s election board meeting.

“We are going to keep things segregated as well, just to keep it organized,” Cannon said.