Mail-In Ballot Snafu Leads To Some Allegheny County Voters Getting Duplicate Ballots
ALLEGHENY COUNTY (KDKA) -- If you applied for a mail-in ballot to vote in the June 2 primary, you may have already received that ballot.
But some voters say they are getting more than one ballot sent to them, prompting concerns about possible fraud.
Election officials say it was just a glitch, and you cannot vote more than once.
Ally Bove of Baldwin Township was confused when she and her husband got a second set of primary ballots.
"Our ballots came in the mail last Monday the 4. And then this past Monday the 11, another set of ballots came," Bove told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Friday.
"It's really just a printing issue," says Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam.
Hallam is a member of the three-person Allegheny County Elections Board, along with County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Councilman Sam DeMarco.
Allegheny County election officials say the problem was limited to just this county because they've already received 180,000 mail-in ballot applications.
"As they're printing these ballots in large batches, the printer is getting timed out. And therefore whenever they restarted, those ones that the printer showed had not yet printed actually had," said Hallam.
Election officials are certain nobody will have two votes or more in the primary because of special coding on the ballot.
"Each voter has a unique barcode associated with them," says Hallam.
"So even if you were to turn in 10 ballots, only the first one would be counted because when that barcode on your first ballot is scanned. If an elections division worker went to scan in another ballot from you, it would say that the bar code has already been used," Hallam added.
Allegheny County Elections Director David Voye did not know how many duplicate ballots were sent out, but he said his office is printing in smaller batches to prevent the problem from happening again.
If you get a second ballot, just destroy it because you can't use it anyway.
Remember, May 26 is the last day to request a mail-in ballot.
