COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nearly 50,000 voters in Ohio's Franklin County received wrong absentee ballots this week.
The Franklin County Board of Elections has already started the process to send new ballots to the 49,669 voters. Every voter who received a wrong ballot will get a new one. The board said on Friday the ballots will be sent out within 72 hours.
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The error caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who tweeted out the following on Friday afternoon: "Breaking News: 50,000 OHIO VOTERS getting WRONG ABSENTEE BALLOTS. Out of control. A Rigged Election!!!"
Informational postcards will be sent out to affected voters to let them know about next steps.
A spokesman for the Franklin County Board of Elections said voters’ requested absentee ballots that they received may not match up with the legislative district in which they reside.
For example, a person who lives in Westerville might have received a blank absentee ballot that was meant for someone living in the Whitehall area.
Officials also said Thursday law enforcement is not involved in the investigation because it is not believed that anything "nefarious" happened.
The board set the following steps will be taken to make sure only one ballot is cast per voter:
- Redundancies are built into our system to ensure every voter is allotted only one voted ballot.
- Sorting systems will drop out and not accept any replacement ballots that are submitted if a voter has already voted in person
- Nightly runs are issued to check all incoming ballots against earlier submissions or a vote cast in person
- Election Day voting of anyone who has an active absentee ballot MUST vote provisionally
On October 3, the board was notified at 2:24 p.m. by a third-party vendor that a sorting machine had incorrectly sent the wrong ballots to Franklin County voters.
"Every voter who received ani incorrect ballot, will receive a corrected ballot as soon as possible. The ballots will be coded for security purposes and once the voter impact list is final, we expect new ballots will be issued within 72 hours," said Ed Leonard, the Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections.
According to the board, the errors occurred with a scanner that helps read barcodes to help sort which ballots are matched to certain envelopes and are sent to respective areas.
In an e-mailed statement Wednesday, the board said the system that led to the wrong ballots being sent is now working correctly.