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Blair County Addresses Ballot Printing Error

Series: Election 2020 | Story 1

The Blair County Commissioners and the county Elections Office have clarified the events surrounding a ballot irregularity.

The full text of the explanation from the commissioners’ office, issued Oct. 16, 2020, is here:

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONERS

The Blair County Elections Office became aware [Oct. 16] that 78 voters who requested mail-in ballots (not absentee ballots) in Logan 2 received two ballot packages.

Upon the Elections Office being contacted by affected voters, the county immediately contacted NPC, who is printing and mailing all absentee and mail-in ballots for the election, to perform an audit as to how many ballots were affected as well as determine how this occurred.

NPC has advised the County that during the run of the initial batch of 387 mail-in ballots for Logan 2 last week, a printer stopped working at 309 ballots, and the remainder of the print job starting at 310 was moved to another printer.

Unfortunately, the next day, the printer that stopped mid-batch completed the print job and the remaining 78 ballot packages were processed.

Not only was this printing error isolated to Logan 2, the county has been provided the list of the 78 voters who received two ballot packages. NPC has advised the county that future printing runs will be much smaller due to over 17,000 ballots having already been printed and mailed, which in and of itself will significantly reduce the likelihood of a similar printing error.

More importantly, NPC has added a second cross-check on addressed ballot packages to eliminate this problem from occurring again.

The Board of Elections is confident that with the information it has, specifically, knowing the 78 people who received two ballot packages, there is no risk of anyone double voting because we can verify that these individuals only turn in one vote.

 

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