More than 21 million people had submitted their midterm ballots by mail as of early Sunday morning. But those voters may not be done yet.
People who vote by mail may get a phone call, email or text message from their local election offices regarding any potential problem with their ballot. But that doesn’t necessarily mean their votes don’t count, because in many states voters may correct, or “cure” mistakes.
Here’s what you need to know.
Many states require voters to sign their mail-in or absentee ballots to confirm their identity. Election officials cross-reference these signatures with the signatures provided on an individual’s voter registration file. Problems may come in the form of a missing signature or one that does not clearly match the version on file, a not-uncommon occurrence. When that happens, states that participate in ballot curing will need to verify a voter’s identity through alternative means.
To submit a mail-in ballot, all 50 states require voters to provide a signature and follow many other requirements to ensure their ballot is properly counted. Twenty-four states follow a process that, in the event of an issue with the ballot, allows voters to correct any mistakes, an operation known as ballot curing. The remaining states will not count a ballot with disparities in signatures or other complications with identity verification.
Ballot curing is a two-step process that involves notification and correction. Depending on the state, officials will allow voters to cure their ballot in one of two ways. The first would be to submit a version of a signature verification affidavit to the local election office, as in the case of Oregon, Utah and Washington. In the alternative option, states like Minnesota, Massachusetts and Iowa will send the voter a replacement ballot to resubmit.
The turnaround for ballot curing differs on a state-by-state basis. Some states like Kentucky, Vermont and Montana require voters to cure their ballots on the day of the election. Most states that offer ballot curing provide voters with at least two days to fix any mistakes on the ballot, with the mean deadline being seven days. Since the ballot curing process varies by state, voters should check with their local election offices to determine the window for correcting ballot issues.
Pennsylvania has a complicated situation. Ballot curing only occurs in some counties, including Bucks, Philadelphia and Allegheny. Last month, the state’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to deny an appeal by the Republican National Committee and other GOP organizations to block counties from allowing ballot curing. However, the high court just last week ordered state election officials to discard any ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated by voters. With Democrats using mail-in ballots more often than Republicans, the decision may help the GOP candidates in hard-fought races for senator and governor
While ballot curing only occurs in select states, they give voters the opportunity to have their vote counted in the event of a mistake with their ballot. If you are notified of a mistake with your ballot, check with your local election office for the correct procedure and deadline to cure your ballot.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.