Coding error results in absentee ballot woes

But for those that did come back and had the wrong (voting district) information, we have already sent out replacement ballots.”

Town Clerk Barbara Thompson

WALLINGFORD — A coding snafu may have resulted in 261 voters who requested absentee ballots getting listed in the wrong voting district, Town Clerk Barbara Thompson said.

The error, Thompson said, occurred as the town’s two registrars of voters were entering information about the voters in advance of the Nov. 3 election. The registrars were supposed to have coded this as a general election, but instead listed it as an “election,” she said.

The ballots were among the nearly 7,000 absentee ballots that were sent to voters on Oct. 2, according to Thompson. The coding error resulted in many of those voters who asked to vote by absentee ballot getting the wrong stickers that must be included on the serial-numbered envelope in which the ballots are sent back, she said.

Local elections, in which mayors and town councilors are elected, occur during odd years and for coding purposes are listed as elections. As a result of the coding error, the 261 ballots “may have the incorrect candidates for the 4 House of Representative seats for those particular districts,” she said.

“Some of the ballots that we sent out at that time have already come back and not all of them were wrong,” Thomson said. “But for those that did come back and had the wrong (voting district) information, we have already sent out replacement ballots.”

Thompson said she is confident that all of the absentee ballots will be counted.

“Whenever there is a problem, we always err on the side of the voter,” she said.