By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Kosciusko County election officials are scrambling after learning that an unknown number of absentee ballots sent out include some misprints.
The issue involves the first batch of absentee ballots sent to 675 voters in the county and the number of misprints appears to be small.
So far, they’ve learned of three misprints.
The misprints involve four races — the 2nd and 3rd District Congressional races, the Indiana Attorney General race and a state senate race.
Voters receiving an absentee ballot receive two pieces of paper, the ballot and a candidate list. The candidate list has a number for each candidate that correlates with a number on the ballot.
The candidate list, in some cases, did not print properly.
The misprints list the Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate (Rudy Yakym) and 3rd District Congressional District candidate (Marlin Stutzman) under the attorney general’s race. At the same time, the list for congressional races only includes the Democratic and Libertarian candidates and is missing the Republican candidate.
The other race with a printing problem was under the 9th District state senate race where a write-in area erroneously appeared in the wrong area.
The problem is the result of a communication error involving Adobe used to print the candidate list, said County Clerk Ann Torpy.
Torpy said once they realized the problem existed, they switched to a previous edition of Adobe for future printing of material for absentee ballots.
While they’ve found three misprinted ballots so far, Torpy said they are still unsure how many ballots might be affected.
Torpy said they learned of the first complaint on Sept. 23, but thought it was an isolated incident.
She said they immediately began double-checking each ballot, but realized they had a bigger problem after they learned of two more misprints.
Officials are still waiting to receive 203 ballots from the first batch, Torpy said.
Torpy also pointed out that the misprints are limited to absentee ballots, which is separate from Election Day in-person voting.
The county election board met in an emergency session Tuesday morning to determine a course of action.
Among those attending were representatives of Yakym’s office, Libertarian candidate William Henry who is running in the 2nd congressional district, and a representative of the Indiana Secretary of State’s office.
Election officials quickly agreed that the candidate list can lead to voter confusion, which merits action.
The election board agreed to take the following action. Republican Election Board member Austin Rovenstine reviewed the agreed-upon steps:
- Voters who have already returned ballots will be sent a letter with a form letting them know they have a right to cast a new ballot.
- All other voters who have not returned absentee ballots (in the first batch) will be alerted to the problem. It may include a new candidate list, but officials are still determining whether that is the correct move, according to the Indiana Election Division.
- All of the ballots potentially affected will be segregated from other ballots on Election Day.
“If they feel they received a defective ballot, they can complete this form. They are more than welcome to email me so there is no delay in the mail and we will get their corrected ballot out to them as soon as possible,” Torpy said.
Torpy said about 1,400 absentee ballots have been requested.
Normally, notifications about an election board meeting require two days’ notice, but that was waived because of the urgency and proximity to election day which is now less than three weeks ago, Rovenstine said.
Applications for absentee ballots need to be submitted to the clerk’s office by Thursday, Oct. 24.
Election Day arrives in three weeks.
The issue does not affect voters who cast straight ballots.
Republican Party Chair Mike Ragan addressed possible concerns about election security.
“We want to make it very clear that voting in Kosciusko County is safe and secure,” Ragan said. “If you vote in person before now or on election day everything is fine … it’s just a small printing error.”
“I would add that the fact we’re all here discussing this together and making decisions on it shows that we’re taking this very seriously for even the smallest error,” Rovenstine added.
