After mail-in and absentee ballot voters received their ballots, they received letters and e-mails from the County Elections Office stating that there was an error on the ballot and they should destroy the first ballots and wait for new ballots to be mailed.  You can click on the image to the right to read a copy of the letter.

The messages mentioned that ballots needed to be reprinted because of an error, but they did not explain the error. The ballot error that affects all county voters was the political affiliation of District Attorney candidate Ashlan J Clark. It was incorrectly listed as Democratic / Republican. Ashlan Clark is a Republican and is not permitted to cross file with both parties. Since this information is important to some voters, the ballots needed to be corrected.  Corrected ballots started to arrive at homes the week of October 16.

The letter we received contains a second error. It states “If you have already returned your mail-in/absentee ballot, you will need to complete the new ballot you will receive in order for your vote to be counted.” This is incorrect.  If you have voted with the first but not the second, the county cannot ignore your vote.

We brought this issue to the attention of the elections office and they corrected the record in a Bedford Gazette article stating “If we do not get all of the replacement ballots back, we will take those from the first batch (originals) and scan them in to be counted.” There is also a correction on the county web site at https://www.bedfordcountypa.org/departments/elections/sample_ballots.php

We advise that you follow the county’s recommendation and vote using the corrected ballot. If you already submitted your ballot, please vote again with the corrected ballot.

We will track the submission of the corrected ballots and then check to make sure you vote is counted if you submit only the first ballot. You will help us in this effort if you vote using the new ballot, and submit the new ballot soon after it is received.