Chantell McCurdy, director of the Butler County Bureau of Elections, said the office is way ahead of the Pennsylvania Department of State’s directive to redesign mail ballot materials to be rolled out in the 2024 primary election.

Butler County residents who apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot also receive instructions on how to properly fill out the ballot and send it back to the Bureau of Elections so it can be accounted for.

“Part of the directive was printing instructions on full-size paper, which we have been doing for years,” McCurdy said Thursday, Dec. 7. “As far as the actual envelopes, the only real difference is the color coding, and the different secrecy envelope which will be colored yellow.”

The Department of State announced in late-November the initiative to reduce voter errors and confusion through redesigned envelopes and instruction sheets. These sheets will have revised language to “better inform voters how to properly fill out and return their mail-in ballots,” because completed ballots can be rejected if they aren’t returned correctly.

According to the Department of State, “thousands of mail ballots are rejected each election due to minor voter errors, like … voters writing their birth date instead of the current date or voters forgetting to sign their ballot.”

McCurdy said improved instructions could help the few people who return ballots incorrectly in Butler County.

“They are trying to reduce the number of people who mistakenly don't sign or date the outside envelope,” she said. “We haven't had a ton of naked ballots come back. It was more of an issue the first year mail-in ballots were enacted.”

McCurdy also said the Butler County commissioners still have to decide what size envelopes to use for the new returning ballots, but the bureau is looking into the cost of using larger envelopes versus the current standard-size ones. She said the cost estimates should be done by mid-December.

The changes being made to mail-in ballots will only affect people who request an absentee ballot application, McCurdy said. She added that the Department of State’s last major initiative rollout was in 2020, with the passing of Act 77.

While some ballots returned to the county Bureau of Elections don’t include signatures or correct dates, they can be “cured” during the bureau’s counting process. McCurdy said this new state initiative could cut down on the mail-in ballots that don’t have signatures or correct dates.

“Any chance we can help the voters, we are absolutely interested in looking at,” McCurdy said.