At least a dozen people in
Plumsted Township opened their ballots to find the wrong town printed on the it, and according
to Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella, it was due to human error.
Last week, 73 ballots were
mistakenly mailed to residents of the
borough of Point Pleasant, and this week,
residents who live in the New Egypt area found ballots meant for Ocean
Township. The ballots were
mailed over the last several days, and the mistake has now been noticed by
several families, who are worried their votes won't count and say this is
exactly why they wanted to vote in person.
The clerk's office reports
nine people have already called them about the erroneous ballots. Kristina
Lewis is one of the people who received an Ocean Township ballot instead of a Plumsted one.
“It's frustrating,” says
Lewis. “I've been waiting in longer grocery lines than I ever did to vote. I
worked the polls last year. I know what the lines look like. They don't exist, even
if we had to take extra safety measures, we could wait in line to vote. It's
really not that big of a deal. So, it's so frustrating to know that I can go to
DMV and stand in line, but I can't stand in line to vote."
"We take very seriously
the importance of accuracy in administering the election process and regret any
innocent human error that may occur in processing a record volume of over
400,000 vote by mail ballots to voters,” says Colabella.
If you find a mistake, don't
call your local town -- call the county clerk's office.
Ballots have gone out to
voters in 30 of the 33 towns located in Ocean County.