State election officials plan to review the state's labeling of absentee ballot envelopes with letters that identify if a voter is a Republican or a Democrat, a state spokesman said.
To help election officials in counties sort absentee ballots, the return envelopes used to send back completed ballots have a letter "R" or "D" after voters' name on the return address part of the envelopes.
"We have not had complaints about it and we're not aware of tampering with because of ballots with this issue," state Department of State spokesman Ronald G. Ruman said.
Several constituents of state Sen. Lisa Baker raised concerns that the party labeling could encourage someone with access to the ballots to remove the ballots of a party they dislike. Baker was concerned enough to introduce a bill last year to remove the party designations from return envelopes.
The bill has 12 co-sponsors, with support from Democratic and Republican senators, but has remained pending in the Senate State Government Committee.
"We had heard from some people and it was a concern," said Jennifer Wilson, Baker's chief of staff.
Absentee ballots are cast in advance of an election by people unable to go to their polling place on Election Day.
The letters "R" and "D" are no larger than a voter's name on the return envelope, but separated by some spaces. The letters were added in 2003, when the state switched to its Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, Ruman said. The Department of State has a bureau that oversees and regulates elections. SURE is a computerized voter database that allows elections officials in Harrisburg to track registration more accurately and ensure purging from voting lists of voters who die or leave the state.
Counties asked for the lettering to help poll workers sort returned ballots for primary elections. The lettering does not appear on general election ballots. The poll workers open ballots after polls close, mix them up, then tally them.
Theoretically, someone who works for the post office or in a county mailing room could remove ballots, but Lackawanna County Director of Elections Marion Medalis said she knows of nothing like that ever happening and thinks it's highly unlikely.
She acknowledged she would not know if someone did remove a ballot unless an absentee voter checked if it was received because not everyone who applies for a ballot returns one.
"I wouldn't know it," she said. "But do I think someone is going to jeopardize their position? I don't think so."
Ruman said he could not speculate whether the review and a decision on what to do will be complete in time for the general election Nov. 6.
By mid-afternoon Friday, 1,467 of the 1,831 people who applied for absentee ballots for the primary election had returned them, Medalis said. Of the returned envelopes, 344 were from Republicans, 1,123 from Democrats.