Montgomery County

Montgomery County Warns of Thousands of Faulty Mail Ballots

Voters who received a faulty ballot are asked to destroy the ballot and the envelopes

NBC Universal, Inc.

Officials in Montgomery County are warning about thousands of faulty general election mail-in ballots that went out to voters.

County elections officials learned Friday night that some 16,000 mail-in ballots were printed incorrectly by its ballot vendor, NPC, and mailed to residents, county spokeswoman Kelly Cofrancisco said in a news release Saturday. The faulty ballots were printed only on one side.

NPC CEO Chip Gallaher said in a written statement that the company regrets the error and is working to ensure impacted voters get a new ballot. “Once the error was recognized, we immediately stopped production and began to investigate. Our investigation determined that a programming error caused the back page of the ballot to be omitted,” Gallaher said.

Voters who received a faulty ballot are asked to destroy the ballot and the envelopes. Montgomery County Voter Services will cancel incorrect ballots and automatically reissue new, two-sided ballots to impacted residents, who will be notified by mail, email or phone, Cofrancisco said.

Corrected ballots are expected to be issued out next week.

“This does not meet the standard we have come to expect from NPC,” Montgomery County Director of Elections Dori Sawyer said in a written statement. “Upon notification of the error, we began working with the Department of State, taking the proper steps to cancel the incorrect ballots and issue replacements. We appreciate the patience of our voters while we re-issue corrected ballots.”

County officials apologized for “the inconvenience this will cause voters.” Voters van view sample ballots on the Montgomery County website.

Contact Us