Only 3 Berks voters who got wrong instructions submitted ballots late

Only three voters who received mailed ballots that included the wrong date for Election Day in Spanish-language instructions submitted their ballots late, according to Berks County election officials.

It was discovered Oct. 20 that the county had mailed 17,000 ballots with Spanishlanguage instructions that incorrectly stated the deadline to return mailed ballots to the county was Nov. 18 — 16 days after the actual date of Nov. 2, as first reported by The Morning Call.

The county commissioners took responsibility for the mistake.

They said the instructions were based on a template from the May 18 primary. They said the month was changed for the general election, but the date was not.

They corrected the error on Spanish-language instructions that were sent after the mistake was discovered and sent letters to all 17,000 people who received the erroneous information. They also publicized the correct information through various means.

The error caused some backlash, with several community leaders and groups calling for an investigation into how the mistake would impact the election and for changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

There was concern the mistake could lead to a large number of voters being disenfranchised.

Based on data provided by the county Wednesday, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

County officials said a total of 243 mailed ballots were received after the deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Of those, 189 were late due to delivery delays by the Postal Service. Those ballots were at the post office by Nov. 2 but were not delivered to the county until the following day. By law, the county cannot count those ballots.

Of the 54 remaining ballots that arrived late, nine were bilingual. Of those nine, only three had received the Spanish-language instructions that contained the incorrect date.