Due to an error on their mail-in ballots, approximately 20,000 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania electors may have to vote again this month.

According to WGAL, this is the third occasion in three years that Lancaster County has issued inaccurate ballots.

This time around, the Superior Court election petitions instructed electors to select only one candidate, despite the fact that they could select up to two.

Before the error was discovered, 18,554 incorrect ballots were sent out, according to election officials. Some were retrievable from the Postal Service prior to delivery, while others were already completed and returned for tabulation.

“Your ballot has been received by LANCASTER County on 04/17/2023,” read an automated email some voters reported receiving. “Your ballot status has been updated to canceled because a replacement ballot has been issued.”

According to county election statistics, Lancaster County had just over 350,000 registered voters in the last November election, so the incorrect ballots represent roughly 5 percent of the total number of votes that could be cast in this spring’s election.

Of course, the actual number of voters anticipated to cast ballots this year is expected to be much smaller.

In the Pennsylvania senate election held in Lancaster County last year, fewer than 225,000 ballots were tallied.

“Everyone who got mailed a ballot, whether they got it or not, is going to get a replacement ballot,” County Commissioner John Trescot told WGAL. “Everybody who requests a mail-in ballot for this election will have something called a replacement ballot.

“It will say ‘replacement’ on it. If you have a ballot that doesn’t say ‘replacement,’ please discard it. You will get a replacement ballot.”

The defective ballots will not be tallied, regardless of whether or not the voter casts a replacement ballot.

Erin Gibson, a Democratic committee member and campaign manager, told LancasterOnline, “Our concern here is that people will receive that first ballot, fill it out, send it back, think they’ve done their civic duty, and then when they receive that replacement ballot in a week or two, they will think it’s junk mail or a scam, and throw it in the trash, and their (first ballot) won’t be counted,”

More on this story via The Western Journal:

Election officials expect the replacement ballots to start showing up at residents’ homes on Monday.

To be counted, voters will have to return them by May 16, giving most voters about three weeks to turn their ballots around. CONTINUE READING…