Hundreds of ballots tossed in Manatee primary. Supervisor has some tips for November
More than half of the nearly 800 ballots that weren’t counted in Manatee County’s Aug. 18 Primary Election showed up to the Supervisor of Elections Office too late.
Vote-by-mail ballots had a strong showing last month, with about 50,000 voters choosing to vote that way. According to Mike Bennett, 412 votes were discarded because they did not show up to the election office before 7 p.m. on Aug. 18.
Now, Bennett is clearing up misconceptions about vote-by-mail deadlines. It doesn’t matter when a mail-in ballot is postmarked — it has to be in the supervisor’s hands by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
“You can’t blame the post office for people sitting on their ballot for 30 days and not sending it in,” said Bennett, noting that more than 200 ballots were postmarked on Aug. 18 — too late for them to arrive by the 7 p.m. deadline.
“If you look at the numbers, out of 50,000 ballots rejecting 1,000 of them is a small number, but it is a serious matter,” Bennett added.
Another common cause for a discarded ballot was the lack of a signature or a signature that didn’t match what Bennett’s office has on record. Every ballot must be signed, but Bennett acknowledges that a signature on file doesn’t always match a person’s actual handwriting.
“You and I both know that your signature doesn’t look like what it does when you sign it at the DMV,” Bennett said, referring to the electronic pad sometimes used to file your signature with the government.
As soon as a ballot is scanned at the Supervisors of Elections Office, staff determine whether a signature matches what’s on file. If it doesn’t, it gets set aside for the three-person Canvassing Board to review. A Manatee County judge, a county commissioner and the supervisor of elections all determine whether the signatures match.
If two of them agree, the vote is counted. If not, a letter gets sent to the voter asking for clarification, and if there’s enough time the office will try to contact the voter by phone or email.
“We fight like hell to try and approve them, but with the ones that are late, we can’t do anything about that,” said Bennett.
For those with inaccurate signatures on file, Bennett recommends updating the signature by filling out a Florida Voter Registration Application, which can be used to update, signature, address and party affiliation.
Bennett said the best advice he can give heading into November’s General Election is to request your ballot early and send it back as soon as possible.
“Unlike the primary election where your candidate might drop out, this is it,” said Bennett. “There’s no reason to delay getting that ballot back to us quickly.”
The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is 10 days before Election Day, Oct. 23. Early voting runs from Oct. 19 to Nov. 1.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
