Love Your Ballot Campaign

Voting by absentee ballot via mail requires marking and mailing a paper ballot to the Board of Elections (BOE) prior to Election Day. Since June 2020, 334,702 absentee ballots have been received by the BOE. These ballots sometimes arrive in poor condition or are incorrectly marked, causing them to be rejected or requiring extra processing.

In July 2022, the BOE launched a “Love Your Ballot” educational campaign to address common mistakes made by voters:

• Returning two absentee ballots in one affidavit envelope

• Marking the ballot with a gel pen or using white-out

• Marking and sending a Sample Ballot instead of the actual absentee ballot

• Tearing the absentee ballot to where the tear interferes with ballot content

• Not signing the affidavit envelope

• Doodling or writing notes on the absentee ballot

• Spilling food/drink on the absentee ballot

Taking a humorous approached to a serious subject, the BOE produced a series of video clips featuring its staff showing common mistakes, with voiceover scripts explaining how these actions can affect accurately counting the votes cast. The completed videos were shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok over the course of one month prior to the August 2022 election, resulting in nearly 7,000 views during the campaign.