How to Fix Errors on Your Pennsylvania Mail Ballot by County

If you made a mistake on your mail ballot in Pennsylvania, you don’t necessarily have to sit on the sidelines on Election Day. Nearly 2 million voters cast mail ballots in the 2024 general election, and with mail voting available to all Pennsylvania voters since 2020, county election boards regularly handle ballots containing errors.

Tracking Your Ballot and the Rules for Error Correction

Voters across all 67 Pennsylvania counties can check the status of their mail or absentee ballot using the online search tool from Pennsylvania’s Department of State. A 2025 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling mandates that counties must notify voters if a submitted mail ballot contains flaws that would otherwise lead to rejection.

How those errors are handled depends heavily on where you live. Most of the commonwealth’s 67 counties utilize a “notice-and-cure” process. This allows election officials to contact voters and provide them with an opportunity to fix the defect before the deadline.

In Philadelphia, alongside its four collar counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery, local boards of elections actively notify voters of filing errors. These offices give residents a chance to cure or fix the ballot so their vote still counts. Voters residing outside of the Philadelphia region can reach out directly to their county election office for specific local procedures.

Voting by Provisional Ballot on Election Day

Not every county relies strictly on a cure process. Some jurisdictions notify voters of a rejected mail ballot and provide instructions on voting by provisional ballot instead.

Voters who receive notice that an error will prevent their mail ballot from being counted can cast a provisional ballot in person at their polling place on Election Day. Under the state Supreme Court ruling, provisional ballots cast by voters in this specific situation must be counted by election officials.