The only omission that should be material on an absentee ballot is a voter's signature. The signature alone is matched against the voter's registration application form for verification. Otherwise, any information the election officers can use to match the ballot to a voter should be used by the election officers to help that voter's ballot count. Please keep in mind that a voter had to submit a signed absentee ballot application already to receive an absentee ballot. Therefore election officers already have a list of potential absentee voters with signatures to match to returned absentee ballots. As election officials our job should be to enfranchise voters. It is my opinion that my job is not to look for reasons to disenfranchise voters. 

 

Please do not modify the code to make the lack of or a wrong street identifier a material omission.

 

Please do not modify the code to make the lack of a generational suffix a material omission. 

 

In fact, if can go further than the proposals:

 

Please remove the need for a signature of a witness. It is unnecessary. Lack of a witness signature should not be a material omission.

 

The lack of a full first or last name should not me a material omission

 

The lack of a house number and/or street name should not be a material omission

 

The lack of a city and/or zip code should not be a material omission