Department of State introduces redesigned, user-friendly provisional ballot envelopes

Continuing the Shapiro Administration's commitment to strengthening our democracy and keeping our elections safe and secure, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced that the Department of State has redesigned the provisional ballot envelopes that counties use in an effort to improve legibility and make the envelope more user-friendly.

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“Every registered voter in our Commonwealth should have the opportunity to cast their vote and make their voice heard in each election,” Schmidt said during a press conference in Philadelphia. “We believe these changes to the provisional ballot envelopes will have a positive impact, just as the changes we made to mail ballot materials two years ago did.”

This envelope update follows the Shapiro Administration’s successful redesign of mail ballot envelopes and materials in 2023. Those redesigned materials resulted in the November 2024 general election seeing a 57% decrease in mail ballot rejections.

In that same election, 29.12% of the provisional ballots cast in Pennsylvania were rejected. The most common reason for a rejected provisional ballot was that the voter was not registered; the second-most-common reason was an incomplete provisional ballot envelope.

The redesigned envelopes feature a layout that clearly instructs voters which fields they must fill out, including highlighting the two places where the envelope must be signed. The envelopes also streamline the process for election workers, identifying which fields they need to complete before and after the voter completes their provisional ballot.