Due to contractor error, Marion elections office resending about 176,000 voter info cards
Editor's note: The Supervisor of Elections Office has used Quality Printing for bulk mailings since 2012. The original version of this story listed a different year.
The Marion County Supervisor of Elections Office on Wednesday said it is resending about 176,000 voter information cards because the originals had some incorrect information.
The fault rests with a longtime outside contractor, which apologized for the mistakes in a letter to Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox.
Wilcox's office recently mailed more than 265,000 voter information cards. On Saturday, according to a statement from Wilcox's office, a citizen reported receiving a card with an incorrect ZIP code.
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"Our team immediately started investigating the issue, then contacted the mail house that printed and mailed the cards to report and identify the scope of the problem," the statement says.
On Tuesday, the elections office was notified that some new cards had an incorrect Marion County Commission district listed. (County commissioners are elected countywide but they represent geographic districts. There are five districts in Marion.)
The elections office started looking into this problem. Then, on Wednesday, Gainesville-based Quality Printing and Mailing Services wrote this to Wilcox:
"The voter registration data and instructions your staff provided were accurate and crystal clear. Due to the volume, we divided the mailings into three batches. Although the proofs we provided and your team reviewed were completely accurate, at some point during the second batch some of the data being printed became distorted," the statement says.
"We are currently assessing our procedures to try and understand how this happened, and which records were printed incorrectly.".
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods swearing in the Poll Deputies for the upcoming August 23 Primary Election. We are grateful for our nearly 800 Election Workers and their civic service to our community and country. THANK YOU 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/DU8XftrdIf
— VoteMarion (@VoteMarion) June 30, 2022
Wilcox's office noted that Quality Printing has handled all of the office's bulk mailings since 2012 with no problems.
"While this is a very unfortunate situation, we understand that mistakes happen and are working with the mail house to rectify the situation," the elections office statement says. "Once again, the data we provided to the mail house was accurate and did NOT contain the incorrect zip code nor an incorrect County Commission district."
The elections office said the contractor will bear the cost of reprinting and distributing the cards.
This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: Marion, Florida elections office must resend about 176,000 voter cards
