NEWAYGO COUNTY, Mich. — Over 6,000 absentee voters in Newaygo County will soon receive a replacement ballot after the county clerk was alerted to an error with the original.
County Clerk Jason Vanderstelt first posted about the incident on his Facebook page on Sunday saying he'd learned that the unopposed race for 78th District Court Judge had been left off the ballot in error.
Vanderstelt said the state had not listed Judge H. Kevin Drake in its "preliminary candidate listing," which is what the county sent to its programmers and printers in mid-August.
The Department of State said the judge was included in the candidate listing it sent out to all jurisdictions in early September, which they say should have been used to program the ballot.
"This was a county error. We provided the candidate listing to all counties on Sept. 2 and it included this judge. The same judge is on the ballot in Oceana County, because that county did not make the same mistake," Jake Rollow, MDOS communications director said by email.
Counties are responsible for proofing their own ballots for content, while the state proofs the ballots for format.
As of Saturday, Vanderstelt says 41 voters had already returned their ballots to local clerks. Those voters now have two options going forward.
They can either vote and return the replacement ballot once they receive it, in which case their original ballot will not be counted. Or, they can choose not to vote with the replacement ballot, in which case their original ballot will be counted without a vote recorded for the 78th Circuit Court Judge race.
The ballot error, which many city and townships clerks in the county say had not happened to them before, comes at a time when absentee ballots are being requested at record high numbers across the state.
By law, clerks were required to begin mailing requested absentee ballots last Thursday, 40 days ahead of the November general election.
Carolyn Drake, clerk of Bridgeton Township, says in her over 40 years as clerk she'd never experienced something like this.
"I was just surprised I guess," Drake said by phone Monday.
She had sent out a little over 200 ballots last week, which she estimates is nearly three times the amount that's typically requested. Six ballots had been returned.
"I just thought, 'Oh no, not all over again.' It's very time consuming," Drake said.
She has four different ballots to send out this year to accommodate the four different school board elections in her jurisdiction.
In a statement, Vanderstelt said new Newaygo County ballots were being printed and should arrive Thursday, Oct. 1 to then be re-issued with a letter explaining the reason for the replacement.
It'll be up to local clerks to prepare and send out the replacements, which in Croton Township includes about 800 ballots. Drake said she is hopeful to have the correct ballots out by early next week.
In jurisdictions including White Cloud and Beaver Township, absentee ballots had not been sent out yet, so voters will only receive the replacement ballot. As for the 6,104 voters whose ballots had already been sent out but not yet returned, they will be asked to use only the replacement ballot.
"Every voter will have their vote counted," Vanderstelt wrote.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.