Some Sanpete County voters receive wrong presidential primary ballot after glitch

Some Sanpete County voters receive wrong presidential primary ballot after glitch

(Ravell Call, KSL, File)


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MANTI — Whoops!

A computer glitch at a ballot-printing vendor resulted in as many as 257 Sanpete County voters receiving the wrong presidential primary ballot, county officials said Thursday. The mix-up led to some of the county’s Republican voters receiving Democratic primary ballots and some Democrats receiving Republican ballots.

Citing her conversation with the ballot printer, Sanpete County Clerk Sandy Neill said the error happened when the party identifier wasn’t correctly linked up with the voter as the ballots were printing. The computer at the printer gives the company employees a report every time there is a glitch.

“It happened 13 times,” she said. “With that, there’s a potential of 257 (voters affected).”

According to Neill, there were nearly 9,000 vote-by-mail ballots printed for Sanpete County residents leading into the presidential primary drop-off deadline, which is March 3. All mail-in ballots must be postmarked by March 2.

While the county is predominantly Republican — 8,132 of the 8,922 ballots printed were sent to Republican voters — voters from both parties were affected by the glitch, Neill said.

Neill insists there was nothing malicious with the mix-up and that the printing company was apologetic for the error. Anyone who received the wrong ballot is encouraged not to vote with it and to call the county clerk’s office at 435-835-2131.

In the meantime, the county and the printing company are working to send those affected the correct ballot for their political party.

“We’re getting a letter together with new ballots ready to send to those voters, Neill said. “We’re working with the company on getting that (done) and they’ll get them with plenty of time before the election.”

Contributing: Emerson Oligschlaeger, KSL

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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com.

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