Allegheny County To Reissue Corrected Ballots To County Voters After Nearly 30,000 Received Wrong Ballots

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The Allegheny County Elections Division announced they will be mailing corrected ballots to county voters following a ballot image mapping error by the company responsible to handle printing the ballots.

The error resulted in 28,879 voters getting incorrect ballots. Voters will receive corrected ballots beginning the week of Oct. 19.

Retired Port Authority driver David Moffett received an incorrect ballot. Due to coronavirus fears this year, he decided to vote by mail. But when his ballot arrived, he immediately saw that something was amiss — the ballot is designated for McKeesport Ward 11, District 3.

KDKA'S Andy Sheehan: That's not you.
Moffett: That's not me. I live in Versailles. I live in Versailles Borough and we have no wards here. But we have District 1 and District 2. I'm in District 1.

On Oct. 9, the elections division was contacted by approximately 20 voters that received incorrect ballots. Once they learned of this error, they contacted Midwest Direct, the company responsible for mailing the ballots, to determine what went wrong. Due to what the company is calling a computer mapping error, the ballots were out of sync by a factor of one. Rather than going to the intended address, they went to the next one on the list.

The issue was corrected on Oct. 13 and correct ballots began printing.

"We want things to go as smoothly as we can. And when you have a glitch, but to their credit, they admitted it, they acknowledged it and they're fixing it," said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

The corrected, re-issued ballots will be identified on the envelope that the voter receives. Additionally, the declaration envelope will also have identification on it to indicate that it is the envelope that should be used to return the corrected ballot.

If someone has already voted, the county says that vote will be discounted and they will get a new ballot to vote again.

As an additional security measure, voters who are included in this batch of ballots will not be able to have a new ballot issued except through this mailing until Oct. 26. Voters who have not received their corrected ballot by Oct. 26 may go to the downtown office of the elections division, or contact the office, for a reissuance.

"And with 20 days to go, we have enough time to send the ballots out," Fitzgerald said. "They'll get their ballots next week with two weeks go, and they'll still have plenty of time to put them in the mail," Fitzgerald said.

Still, Moffett is anxious.

"I want it to count. I want to vote, and I'm naturally concerned it's coming out wrong," Moffett said.

More information can be found on the Allegheny County Election Division's website. You are also able to track the status of your mail-in ballot on the state's website - VotesPa.com