Thousands of Philadelphians Need to Fix Their Mail-In Ballots

The City of Philadelphia has released a list of the mail-in ballots that have issues.

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Thousands of Philadelphians Need to Fix Their Mail-In Ballots

The good news: Lots of Philadelphians have voted early, which is key to our plan to save the state, the country and democracy itself. (Again.)

The bad news: A bunch of us voted improperly.

According to the Philadelphia City Commissioners, many of us have sent in mail-in and absentee ballots with “various issues that may prevent them from being counted.” These issues include ballots sent in with no secrecy envelope, no signature, no date, etc.

There are more than 3,300 names on their list of voters whose ballots have issues at last update. But don’t panic yet. A lot of these ballots — 1,297, at last CTRL+F-ing — are listed as “undeliverable,” i.e. returned by the U.S. Postal Service

The list is public, which means anybody can look at the list and make fun of you for not signing your ballot. Hey former mayor John Street! You or someone named exactly like you has a ballot marked “undeliverable!” I guess that means you moved! Or I guess that means he moved. Sorry for yelling.

If your name is on the list, there’s still time to correct the situation, according to a spokesperson for the City Commissioners office: “If you still have your ballot and return envelope, the one with the voter’s declaration, you can surrender those at the polls to your Judge of Election, sign an affirmation, and vote on the machines like normal. If you don’t have your ballot and return envelope, you can vote by Provisional Ballot at your polling place.”

UPDATE: A reader wrote to me (and an election expert confirmed it) to say that Provisional Ballots get counted last — if they get counted at all — and are better left as a last resort sort of thing. Instead, if your name is on the list go to a Satellite Election Office to get it sorted. Those are open seven days a week. They’ll probably let you use a Replacement Ballot.

If you’re not on the list but worried you didn’t do it correctly because, I don’t know, it’s just the most important election in the history of the world, keep checking. They’re adding and deleting names as issues are raised/resolved.

Taking the Cakes

This vanilla layer cake from McMillan’s was 12 inches across and weighed more than Moo Deng.

Sad news out of South Jersey, as McMillan’s Bakery in Haddon Township has announced that it will be calling it a day sometime after the holiday season. Now the owner of the building is selling the place. My mom thinks they should relocate to Collingswood, a mile or two down Haddon Avenue.

Founded in 1939 by George and Evelyn McMillan, the mom and pop shop with the tiny parking lot was known for making donuts, cookies and heavy-as-hell cakes for families around the area.

My own family picked up a dense, delectable cake from McMillan’s last weekend and brought it to the Pub to celebrate several birthdays at once. See above photo. Always take a picture of the cake.

South Jersey still has plenty of well-regarded bakeries, of course, but it sucks to lose a heaping slice of my childhood. Question: When you’re wandering your old neighborhood drenched in nostalgia, what song plays in your head? For me it’s either “This Used to Be My Playground” or “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”

RIP Teri Garr, Philly Radio Listener

Au revoir to the great Teri Garr. The beloved actress — Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Tootsie, Young Frankenstein and so on — had no real connection to the Philly area, as far as I know, except for all those upbeat, somewhat baffling commercials she used to do for easy listening station B101.

According to an article in the Daily News, May 25, 2000 (h/t Ronnie Polaneczky!), Garr came to town to shoot the ads by the fountain at Logan Square with a bunch of lucky local listeners. I always pictured the Oscar-nominated actress driving into town from L.A. or New York, pulling into a Forman Mills parking lot and just blissing out to “Invisible Touch” in her car.

By the Numbers

$18 million: Money raised by this 20-year-old South Jersey man for his Democratic super PAC, whose goal is to get Gen Z to the polls.

0  How many goals the Flyers let up yesterday. Mark my words: The Flyers are a hockey team.

79 degrees:  That’s today’s high.

82 degrees:  That’s tomorrow’s high. In October. On Halloween. Bummer. There will be dripping face paint, wilting cardboard, tantrums in the street, Kit Kats and gummi worms melting together, mass hysteria.

Local Talent

Way late to the party on this, but I was delighted to find Philadelphia’s own Frances Quinlan — who makes music under their own name as well as with the band Hop Along — on the soundtrack to the beautiful and unsettling queer/existential horror movie I Saw the TV Glow (now screening on [HBO] Max). Quinlan’s pretty, sad and excitable “Another Season” stands out, even alongside tracks by Jay Som, Phoebe Bridgers, King Woman, Caroline Polachek and more. Meanwhile another Philadelphian, Alex G., provided the score.