Allegheny County voters receive confusing email alert

Many Allegheny County voters were confused this week after receiving a certain email alert.

The email, sent from the state, was titled “Your Ballot Is on the Way.”

The text of the message read, “Your ballot is almost ready, and it’s being prepared for mailing.”

But many of the voters who received the alert had already received, completed and returned their mail-in ballots.

Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs said the mistake was caused by a problem with Pennsylvania’s online ballot tracker. The tracker, which lets voters keep tabs on the status of their mail-in ballots, was not showing a date in the “Ballot Mailed On” column. That column is meant to indicate when a voter sent their ballot back to their county elections office.

“To correct that, Elections utilized a tool in the state system to update statuses for individuals whose ballots have already been mailed. That action resulted in ‘Your ballot is on its way’ emails going out,” Downs said.

The next day, the county sent a second email explaining the error. Downs said some voters reached out to the county to verify their ballots’ status.

“We have responded to all of those emails and calls,” she said. “We also posted messages on social media, through channels like NextDoor, on the main elections website and through Allegheny Alerts.”

No action is required of the affected voters, Downs said.

The minor mishap comes as mail-in voting rapidly expands across the U.S. amid the covid-19 pandemic. Allegheny County has approved more than 350,000 mail-in ballot applications, which includes mail-in and absentee ballots. Nearly 256,000 of those ballots are for registered Democrats, and about 68,000 are for Republicans.

The county Elections Division has delivered 322,000 mail-in ballots to post offices, and 115,288 had been completed and returned to Elections as of Friday.

Mail-in ballot applications are due by 5 p.m. Oct. 27. The ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day, which is Nov. 3.