Thousands of mail-in ballots have had a ‘mix up’ in one Pennsylvania county.
A municipal election in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is experiencing a mix-up with thousands of mail-in ballots.
Of the 25,500 mail-in ballots requested so far, 2,700 have contained instructions meant for a different county.
“They said that their instructions told them they did not need to pay for postage. However their return envelope said they did need to pay for postage,” Chief clerk and chief registrar of the Lancaster County Board of Elections and Registration Commission Christa Miller said. The county attributes the mistake to the vendor Michigan Election Resources, which also sent ballots containing return envelopes with names differing from the intended recipient.
“We’re as unhappy as the voters are with what’s going on,” Miller said before revealing the office is still receiving and counting the tainted ballots.
“Approximately 2,700 people did receive instructions for Delaware county and not Lancaster County,” said Christa Miller.
LANCASTER, Pa. — On Tuesday, the Lancaster County Board of Elections and Registration Commission started receiving calls from voters about differing instructions.
“The instructions that got sent out in the yellow piece of paper said that postage is not necessary,” said Lancaster County Board of Elections and Registration Commission Chief Clerk Christa Miller.
However their return envelope said that postage was required. So, what went wrong?
“Approximately 2,700 people did receive instructions for Delaware county and not Lancaster County,” said Miller.
Delaware County voters do not need to add postage to their return envelope, whereas Lancaster County voters do.
“We did send emails, if we had an email on file to all those people they did receive an email with the updated instructions and our apologies and to those that did not, we did send them a letter to let them know what was going on,” said Miller.
If someone has returned their mail in ballot following the instructions they were given, officials say they will still receive their ballot and it will be counted.
After figuring out this issue, another one came soon after.
“We started to receive phone calls from voters who opened their mail and obviously their mail had their address on the outer end of the envelope because they received it. when they opened it, the return envelope had the name and address different person on it,” said Miller.
When the vendor does the mailing and sorting, they use a camera process that is supposed to look at each item and when things don’t match it causes the machine to stop.
“Which it did. It did exactly what it was supposed to, however then a person has to go over to fix the problem. When that part happened that is where the mishap has occurred,” said Miller.
Officials believe this affected about one hundred people, mainly in the boroughs of Mount Joy and Marietta.
“We are asking that people call as soon as they notice it. They call into our office we can either cancel the ballot with their name on it that is out there and reissue them one or we’ve had a few people that have come straight to our office and we’ve done it right here in person,” said Miller.
Michigan Election Resources, the vendor responsible for printing and sending the mail in ballots to Lancaster County and other Counties in Pennsylvania took full responsibility for both errors.
Ballot Box and elections office extended hours for Lancaster County: May 13, 14, and 17 until 8pm, May 15 from 8:00am-12:00pm and Election day May 18 from 7:00am-8:00pm.
Over two thousand voters in Lancaster County received contradicting instructions regarding their mail in ballot that caused confusion and frustration. On @fox43 at 4, we’ll tell you what happened and what you can do if you received the wrong instructions. pic.twitter.com/U1mLYkceKK
— Paola Belloso (@PaolaBellosotv) May 7, 2021
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