Got a letter about the signature on your ballot? It's an election safeguard, not a rejection

California is almost done counting ballots — but the key word is almost. Election officials are now moving onto the ballot “curing” phase and are sending notices to voters for verification.

If you received a letter in the mail, it doesn't automatically mean your ballot has been rejected, contrary to misinformation circulating online. Ballot curing is a normal part of California’s vote-verification process and a safeguard to make sure you actually cast your mail-in vote.

Here’s what you should know about how it works and steps to take to make sure your ballot gets counted.

What is ballot curing?

If your ballot needs to be cured, that means the mail-in envelope has been flagged for a signature issue. That could be because it looks off (that is, it doesn’t match what’s on your state record) or it’s missing entirely.

Your county registrar will send you a letter that asks for your signature to attest that you returned the ballot and that it’s your name on the envelope. (The mismatched signature and unsigned envelope letters can be separate in some counties — but L.A. County combines it.) You’ll also have to provide your address. These steps are required under state election code.

You can reply to that notice via phone, email, mail, fax or in person. If you’ve received a letter in Orange County, follow the steps here. For L.A. County, follow the steps in your letter. Here's an example of what the combined letters look like for both counties:

The privacy of your vote is protected during this process. The state election code requires the ballot return envelope to stay sealed until the registrar can verify the voter’s signature. LAist has also confirmed this with the L.A. County registrar’s communications manager Mike Sanchez and Aimara Freeman, a spokesperson for Orange County's registrar.

Why do I need to do it?

Your registrar is giving you an opportunity to fix a discrepancy, which helps ensure only registered voters cast ballots.

It’s important to cure your ballot by the deadline because your vote won’t count without it. The registrar must receive it no later than 5 p.m. June 24.

L.A. and Orange counties have about 24,000 ballots to cure as of Wednesday, according to the California Secretary of State.

A very small portion of ballots gets rejected each election statewide. The Secretary of State reports that 0.93% of ballots — or 122,480 votes — were not counted in the 2024 general election, for example, mostly because signature issues weren’t resolved.

How are signatures verified and flagged?

Signatures are compared to the ones in your voter registration record. Because of California’s Motor Voter program, that could come from the DMV. If you’re curious what your local registrar has, you can ask to review the signatures in your file.

We cover in detail how the verification process works here, but this is the gist:

• In L.A. County, a device compares your signatures first. If it’s mismatched or missing, a human then reviews it.
• In Orange County, humans do the comparison and review.

Three election officials have to agree that a ballot signature is “significantly” different from the one on record for it to be pulled, according to state code. To verify your signature, officials consider spelling, signature slant, letter characteristics and possible explanations for discrepancies — for example, trembling hands or rushed writing.

The ballot gets pulled for curing when officials challenge it — that is, they determine it needs extra verification. State law requires notices for this to be sent by first-class mail by the next business day after a challenge.

Second notices may also arrive by phone or email. You can choose a preferred secondary method through the Secretary of State’s “Where’s My Ballot?” tracking service.

As a reminder, Tuesday was the last day for ballots to arrive by mail, as long as it was postmarked by Election Day. So if you haven’t been notified that your ballot’s been counted yet, you should check on it.

Here’s where to do that for L.A. County. Orange County has a similar tool that you can find here.