Oops: Hundreds of Michigan Overseas Mail-in Ballots Omitted a Pretty Important Name
Cortney O'Brien
Posted: Sep 16, 2020 9:50 AM
Are hundreds of Michigan voters who serve in the military or live overseas about to get mail-in ballots that are missing a pretty important name? Election officials recently discovered that, in lieu of Mike Pence, was the name Jeremy Cohen, Jo Jorgenson’s Libertarian running mate.
The Detroit News explained what caused the egregious mishap.
The error occurred with ballots meant to be mailed or emailed to Michigan residents living abroad under the Military and Overseas Empowerment (MOVE) Act. Those ballots usually are downloaded by local clerks' offices upon request from an overseas voter and either printed and mailed, or downloaded via PDF and emailed to the voter before the election.
Within a roughly two-hour time frame Tuesday afternoon, ballots downloaded from the state website to be mailed or emailed to those overseas “had an error in the presidential race impacting how candidates and running mates were listed,†according to an email sent from the state to clerks impacted by the error.
The Michigan Secretary of State's Office confirmed the error, and apologized, adding that she doesn't know how many of these ballots were already sent out.
"There was a temporary error in the (Qualified Voter File) data that caused some ballots downloaded (Tuesday) to display incorrect ballot information when clerks downloaded the (Qualified Voter File) ballot sent to military and overseas voters," said Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. "Approximately 400 ballots were downloaded by clerks during this period; we don’t know how many were sent."
Wimmer said the error was corrected within 90 minutes and instructed local clerks to reissue correct ballots. If voters do return votes on the incorrect ballots, they have a plan for that too.
"If a voter does happen to return the incorrect ballot instead of the correct ballot, it will still count. The clerk will be instructed to duplicate a vote for Trump onto a ballot for Trump/Pence," Wimmer said.
"Since these ballots generated out of (Qualified Voter File) are all duplicated regardless, the procedure would not differ from what would be done with a vote for Trump on the correct ballot."
more
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/09/16/oops-vp-pence-accidentally-left-off-hundreds-of-mailin-ballots-in-michigan-n2576279
