CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Halfway through the early voting period on the April 21 referendum, Albemarle County’s new voter registrar has been busy with people who have not properly sent back their mail-in ballots.
Jonell McFadden told Cville Right Now there is a way to “cure” improperly received ballots, but she’s asking by-mail voters to carefully follow the instructions for sending them to her office.
“Number one, we need the ‘B’ envelope. There are far too many voters sending in naked ballots,” McFadden said. “So, there’s no ‘B’ envelope and we don’t have any of that information.”
The Virginia Department of Elections instructions tell voters to open envelope ‘A’ and remove the ballot, mark it using a blue or black pen, seal it into envelope ‘B’ and fill in all the spaces on the Statement of Absentee Voter on envelope ‘B.’
“The number one omission is the last four of the social security number,” ” McFadden said. “It’s required, or your ballot will not count.”
Once the statement is properly filled out, the voter must seal the ‘B’ envelope inside the postage-paid return envelope received in the ballot package.
McFadden said to never send back the ballot in just that postage-paid envelope without first sealing it inside the ‘B’ envelope.
“I have far too many of those where people are not sending in their ballot inside the ‘B’ envelope, and they’re not completely filling out the ‘B’ envelope,” she said.
When the registrar’s office receives a ballot that improperly sealed or not completely filled out, McFadden said there is a process to “cure” the ballot.
“I send a letter or email to a person saying ‘hey, we need this information from you’,” said McFadden. “And the letter, all they have to do is mark the letter just giving us the information we asked for, and then there’s an envelope that we pay the postage for. They need to just pop it in the envelope and send it back in.”
Mail-in ballots must be sent to the local registrar’s office with a postmark by the April 21 Election Day, and the ballot must be at the registrar’s office by noon Friday, April 24.
