Ballot curing is the process of correcting ballots that have been returned but were initially rejected by the local Registrar of Voters (ROV) office. The most common reasons for rejecting ballots are missing signatures or signatures that do not match the ROV’s signature on file.
Most ROV offices will make a concerted effort to cure ballots themselves by contacting the voters and requesting signatures or by taking additional measures to validate the signatures. State law in California also allows these ballots to be cured and resolved by campaign organizations.
PDI Ballot Curing Data is currently available in all PDI accounts to assist political campaigns and organizations in their effort to cure rejected ballots. We will indicate when the ballot curing data is updated each day by posting the following message on the program Home Page.
The ballot curing data we post each day reveals exactly which voters have ballots eligible to be cured. If the message indicating the data has been updated is not displayed on the Home Page, you should wait to process data before contacting voters.
Ballot curing data is not cumulative. The list of voters is replaced daily as voters with cured ballots removed and new voters added. You should only attempt to contact voters included on the current day’s list.
Using Ballot Curing Data
Ballot curing data can now be found in two separate locations of the Create Voter Universes module. Historically we used the voter model framework to manage ballot curing data with a separate model for No Signatures and No Match Signatures and model scores reflecting each date (MMDD) the data is updated.
For the 2024 General Election, we have added the same ballot curing categories plus a combined option to the PDI Vote Propensity Universes drop-down box. The advantage of using this method over the model score is that the data always utilizes the current day’s curing data only. If you create a saved universe using one of these options, your universe will always reflect the current day’s ballots without having to modify the universe parameters.
The advantage of using the model score method is that you have access to more than just the current day’s ballot to be cured which may be useful for analysis (not outreach).
To use the model score method, go to the Create Universe → Models tab and type “Curing” in the Model Name field. You will see options for “Ballot Curing - No Signature 24G” and “Ballot Curing - No Signature Match 24G”.
The model values represent dates of when the data was posted. For example, a value of “1030” for the Ballot Curing - No Signature 24G” will identify the voters whose ballots were rejected as of October 30th. You will need to select the most recent date in both boxes to see what voters still have a ballot that needs curing.
Once you set the criteria and build your universe, you can view the list of voters from the People Search page (Using the Saved Voter Universe option) or create a phone list, phone bank, or canvassing project to directly contact these voters and help them with the curing process.[1] [2] [3] [4]
For your convenience, here is a link to the Election Code 3019 that references the ballot curing process.