Roughly 800 voters in Maryland’s Montgomery County — out of 670,000 registered voters in the county — were mailed duplicate ballots, elections officials say.
Gilberto Zelaya, a spokesperson for the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said the issue, which was discovered June 30, was limited to a single batch of voters in the county.
“We mailed a letter ASAP to each of the affected voters apologizing for the error and reassuring them that even if they did return the second ballot, only one would count,” Zelaya wrote in an email to WTOP.
A statement from the Maryland State Board of Elections said officials discovered on July 5 an additional 142 voters in 10 other Maryland counties also received duplicate mail-in ballots.
The letter being sent to voters who received two ballots asks them to destroy the second if they have already returned the first. If they still have both ballots, the letter says they should return one and destroy the other.
The letter says there are procedures in place to be sure only one ballot is counted for each voter and that if you returned both ballots, only one will be counted.
The board says it worked with its vendor, Minnesota-based Taylor Corporation, in tracing the issue and emphasized the size of the batch — just over a tenth of 1% of its registered voters.
Bethesda Beat first reported the duplicate ballots.
This isn’t the first snag to hit Maryland voters this primary season. Last month, about 10,000 voters in Prince George’s County were mailed incorrect sample ballots.
WTOP’s Jack Moore contributed to this report.
