A court in Erie County, Pennsylvania, has taken action to address a mail ballot delivery issue that affected thousands of voters in the area. The court ordered election officials to provide an extension of 'on demand' mail voting for those impacted by the delivery disruptions.
The issue arose due to a vendor error that resulted in many voters not receiving their mail-in ballots in time for them to be returned by Pennsylvania's Election Day deadline. As a result, at least 365 voters received duplicate ballots containing a bar code assigned to another voter, as stated in the court's order issued on Friday.
To rectify the situation, election officials have been directed to offer on-demand mail voting services over the weekend. Additionally, they must ensure that there are sufficient provisional voting materials available at in-person voting sites on Tuesday to accommodate the expected increase in provisional voting by affected mail voters.
The court's order also outlined a process for handling the duplicate ballots to prevent any voting irregularities. With Erie County having over 182,000 registered voters, it is estimated that up to 9% of them may have been impacted by the delivery failures.
Sam Talarico, chair of the Erie County Democratic Committee, expressed satisfaction with the judge's order and mentioned that volunteers are actively working to reach out to affected voters to ensure they can exercise their right to vote.
