(Capital-Star photo)
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party is seeking a preliminary injunction against the Erie County Board of Elections over problems with mail ballots that it alleges could be affecting up to 20,000 voters.
The issues in Erie began with an Ohio-based third-party vendor, ElectionIQ, that the county contracts with to print and mail its mail ballots, given the volume of requests for mail ballots the county has received for the upcoming election. A voter notified the Erie elections board and the county Voter Registration Office on Oct. 18 that they had received two mail ballots, one with their correct information and a second with a different voter’s name and address on the return envelope.
A software failure caused ElectionIQ to send duplicate ballots that went into incorrect envelopes. The county estimated that about 300 people received duplicate or incorrect ballots, and the U.S. Postal Service has “been unable to account for,” another 1,800 mail ballots, according to the lawsuit, which the county says were never mailed by ElectionIQ.