Auditor catches ballot error

The county auditor has discovered that 836 ballots out of the more than 70,000 absentee ballots mailed last week were issued with the wrong name on the mailing label. All other information on the ballot envelope was correct, but because of an incorrect data entry during processing, the ballots were printed with incorrect names.

The absentee ballot envelopes were sent to the correct address and contain the correct ballot and voter guides meaning if voters write their correct name on the ballot and return it, their votes would be counted.
Replacement ballots will be mailed beginning October 19. Voters will have the option of returning the original ballot or the replacement.
Shirley Forslof, Whatcom County Auditor, assures voters that the election system will not allow more than one ballot to be processed and counted even if any voter sends more than one ballot back to their office.