‘Mistakes are going to happen,’ Greene Co. BOE director addresses recent ballot error

GREENE COUNTY — The Greene County Board of Elections says 185 people were affected by an error on their absentee ballots for the upcoming primary election.

News Center 7 previously reported on Friday that some absentee voters received a ballot for a party other than the party ballot they requested.

Alisha Beeler, director of the Greene County Board of Elections, said while only 185 people were affected, it potentially could have been as many as 332 people.

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“As soon as we discovered [the error], we were on the phone with our vendor and the Secretary of State getting it fixed,” Beeler said.

Correct ballots were mailed out Saturday and Beeler said they should arrive to voters today or tomorrow.

Beeler said if voters got the wrong ballot, they can go ahead a destroy it or send it back in with their new ballot for the board of elections to destroy.

“Only one vote will be counted, so you don’t want to send in the first one you got. Wait for that new one to come before you send it in,” Beeler told News Center 7′s John Bedell.

This was the third year in a row that the Greene County Board of Elections has had to issue a correction related to election material.

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In 2020, News Center 7 reported that a letter included in some Greene County voters absentee ballot packets included an incorrect date for a ballot to be postmarked.

Last year, the board sent voters postcards printed with the wrong election date

Beeler said this issue was “completely different problem” than the previous two years.

“We’re all human. We all make errors. And I would say, especially right now with the condensed timeline and trying to get everything done in a shortened amount of time, that was our biggest thing, is ‘mistakes are going to happen and are we going to be able to fix them?’” Beeler said.

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