COLUMBUS – Franklin County elections officials in Ohio say some of the nearly 50,000 absentee ballots reported last week to be incorrect may have been correct after all, but replacement ballots will be sent anyway.
The county elections board said in a news release dated Saturday that the vendor supporting the board initially reported an analysis indicating that 49,669 incorrect ballots were mailed but a revised analysis “determined that some of the 49,669 ballots may have in fact been correct.”
But replacement ballots are being sent to each voter affected “out of an abundance of caution.”
The vendor supporting the board, BlueCrest, initially reported that their analysis indicated 49,669 incorrect ballots were mailed. The vendor has since revised the analysis and determined that some of the 49,669 ballots may have in fact been correct. BlueCrest has taken responsibility for their error. Out of an abundance of caution, a replacement ballot will still be provided to each voter who may have received an incorrect ballot. We expect those ballots to begin delivery within 72 hours. -Franklin County Board of Elections statement.
Board officials say measures are in place to guarantee that a voter can only cast one vote, including redundancies to ensure every voter is allotted only one voted ballot.
All incoming ballots will be checked nightly against earlier submissions or a vote cast in person and no replacement ballots will be counted if a voter has already voted in person.
Voters who vote at polling places on Election Day will be issued provisional ballots.
With Ohio shaping up to be a battleground state again this November, both presidential campaigns have scheduled stops in the state Monday.
With the president sidelined by COVID-19, Vice President Mike Pence plans a “Make America Great Again” rally at the Stavko & Sons cement contracting business on the Northwest Side at noon.
President Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016, but recent surveys show a tight race this year. Surveys by Republican legislative strategists show Trump’s support has declined in suburbs across Ohio this year, notably in and around Cincinnati.
Joe Biden is also set to make a general election campaign visit to Ohio.
The visit signals the former vice president’s hopes of winning the state the Democrats lost by a significant margin in 2016.
The Biden campaign says Biden plans stops in Toledo and Cincinnati, a week after boosting advertising dollars into Ohio’s rural and Appalachian areas.