Absentee ballots to be reissued after staff fails to catch error

Corrected ballots are to be sent out by Monday.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Thousands of ballots sent to absentee voters in Hamilton County must be reissued because they would give votes intended for an unopposed county engineer to an Ohio Supreme Court candidate.
Of the 17,500 ballots sent out this week, about 3,400 gave the same punchcard position to engineer William Brayshaw and Democratic judicial candidate Nancy Fuerst.
Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, said an overworked staff that processed nearly 68,000 new voter registration applications made a proofreading error.
After consulting with the campaigns for Fuerst and her opponent, Republican Judith Lanzinger, the board unanimously voted to send a second absentee ballot.
The corrected ballots will be sent out by Monday, said John Williams, director of the county elections board.
"We think it's the cleanest and most fair way to go," he said.
Ballot pages
A voter can use either the first or second ballot. The board can ensure that no one has both of their ballots counted because all ballot envelopes are numbered and dated, Williams said.
The ballot pages were among more than 750 different pages proofed by county election workers for the Nov. 2 election.
A call from an absentee voter alerted the election board to the error Wednesday, a day after the board started sending ballots, Williams said.
"It's just an unfortunate mistake, but it seems like they're doing what they can to fix the problem," said Amy Jenkins, Lanzinger's campaign manager.
The error comes in an election year in which the mechanics of voting, especially in battleground states like Ohio, face unprecedented scrutiny.