Illegal or discarded ballot?

[Guest Shelley Robinson]

    Our club recently conducted officer elections by mail-in ballot with a postmark deadline of April 8.  Five ballots

were received on April 9.  Tellers agree the 5 ballots did not meet the required deadline; therefore, were not counted. 

     My question is, are the late ballots discarded or are they counted as "illegal" ballots on the tally?  It makes a difference

in calculating the "majority" of votes cast.  For example, if 50 votes were cast, but 5 did not meet the post marked

deadline, do we have 50 votes cast with 5 spoiled or illegal votes? Or do we have 45 votes?

  If we have 50 votes, the winner of the election must receive at 25 votes to win the majority vote.  If we have 45 votes,

the inner of the election must receive 23 votes to win the majority vote.   I appreciate your interpretation(s)!

[Atul Kapur]

I would say 45. This situation would not have arisen if you had started counting as soon as the deadline arrived. The answer should not change because you delayed counting.

This answer also makes practical sense.It is now April 16th. If you go back and check that mailbox today, what are you going to do if there's another 10 ballots in there?

[Weldon Merritt]

While I agree in general with my colleagues (a deadline is a deadline), I am puzzled by one aspect of your question. You first say that there was "a postmark deadline of April 8" then you say the ballots in question "were received on April 9." If they were received on April 9,  they must have been postmarked by April 8, and probably earlier. (The USPS is pretty good, but I don't think they can deleive mail the same day it is postmarked.) So how did the tellers determine that the five vallots were untimely?

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, Guest Shelley Robinson said:

    Our club recently conducted officer elections by mail-in ballot with a postmark deadline of April 8.  Five ballots

were received on April 9.  Tellers agree the 5 ballots did not meet the required deadline; therefore, were not counted. 

     My question is, are the late ballots discarded or are they counted as "illegal" ballots on the tally?  It makes a difference

in calculating the "majority" of votes cast.  For example, if 50 votes were cast, but 5 did not meet the post marked

deadline, do we have 50 votes cast with 5 spoiled or illegal votes? Or do we have 45 votes?

  If we have 50 votes, the winner of the election must receive at 25 votes to win the majority vote.  If we have 45 votes,

the inner of the election must receive 23 votes to win the majority vote.   I appreciate your interpretation(s)!

If there are late ballots, such ballots are discarded, not counted as illegal votes.

I concur with Mr. Merritt, however, that is not clear from the facts presented that the ballots in question are, in fact, late.

[Atul Kapur]

1 hour ago, Weldon Merritt said:

While I agree in general with my colleagues (a deadline is a deadline), I am puzzled by one aspect of your question. You first say that there was "a postmark deadline of April 8" then you say the ballots in question "were received on April 9." If they were received on April 9,  they must have been postmarked by April 8, and probably earlier. (The USPS is pretty good, but I don't think they can deleive mail the same day it is postmarked.) So how did the tellers determine that the five vallots were untimely?

We thank Mr. Merritt for catching that distinction. In that case we suggest that it would be a good idea to go back to the mailbox today or tomorrow to see if there are any ballots postmarked April 8 but were delivered this week.