Roseville woman sent incorrect mail-in ballot
A mail-in ballot sent to a Minnesotan during the 2020 general election.
ROSEVILLE, Minn. (FOX 9) - Kathleen Martin realized this week that Ramsey County had sent her the wrong absentee ballot.
First, she said she did not recognize the candidates running for the state House of Representatives from her area and then she saw the wrong school district. The city listed was North St. Paul and Martin lives in Roseville.
“So we called the county and reported it,” said Martin.
Worried about making sure her vote is properly counted on Election Day, Martin went to the Roseville Library to cast her ballot in person. Her advice to others is to check their ballots when they arrive in their mailbox.
A Minnesota ballot for the 2020 general election.
“If I had mailed it in, marked it and mailed it in, it would have been disqualified,” Martin said.
Ramsey County declined FOX 9’s interview request, but did thank Martin for bringing the issue to their attention.
In a statement, Ramsey County said, “Our mailing process involves spot audits at each step in the ballot package assembly process for quality control. Errors are very rare.”
Ramsey County election officials pointed out that state law provides a remedy in this situation, where the original absentee ballot is invalidated and a voter is allowed to cast the right ballot and have their vote counted.
Martin’s concern is how many voters aren’t paying attention to their ballots given the focus on the Presidential race for the White House. She wonders if others may not realize there’s an issue at all.
Here is the full statement from Ramsey County:
Our mailing process involves spot audits at each step in the ballot package assembly process for quality control. Errors are very rare.
As with previous elections, we field isolated issues from individual absentee voters about potential errors. If there is an error – such as where a ballot doesn’t match a signature envelope or one of those doesn’t match the address that the ballot package was mailed to - we resolve it by invalidating the erroneous ballot and reissuing the proper ballot/s. State law provides a process for this and we follow those remedies. The ballot package includes information about how to contact us to get a new ballot. Email, phone and in-person assistance at any absentee voting site are all options in Ramsey County. According the voter’s account, we were able to resolve/remedy the issue promptly. We are grateful for the voter’s prompt attention and apologize for the inconvenience. Our top priority is to ensure that all votes are properly counted and we encourage all voters to carefully review the information in their absentee ballot packages and to contact us in the way most convenient to them as soon as they are able.
We’ve issued about 145,000 ballots since Friday the 18th. We update these stats regularly here: https://data.ramseycounty.us/stories/s/qzeh-89k8