One hundred voters in the City of Florence who live in the Fawn Ridge neighborhood were issued ballots without the uncontested Heceta Water People’s Utility District, Subdivision 5 race on them.
To remedy the issue, voters will receive two separate ballots. The original ballot, which does not include Heceta PUD Subdivision 5, and a supplemental ballot including only the Heceta PUD Subdivision 5 contest. Voters should vote both ballots and return them as they normally would.
“We apologize for the error,” said Lane County Clerk Dena Dawson. “Our office has begun contacting the affected voters with email or phone numbers on file. All affected voters can expect to receive an explanation and instructions included with the supplemental ballot.”
The error came to the attention of Lane County Elections thanks to a notification from the Regional Land Information Database (RLID), which is contracted to provide ongoing redistricting support. The mismatches occurred between addresses in the Oregon Centralized Voter Registration System (OCVR) and RLID.
Upon receipt of the information, Lane County Elections reviewed the data and determined that some of the mismatched addresses were in districts included on the November 8, 2022 ballot. Auditing of those records began immediately.
Lane County Elections could not create a new ballot style matching the correct combination of races and measures for voters affected because this information was provided after ballots were generated, and the election had already begun.
An internal process for reconciling and hand-counting the ballots has been developed and the official election results will include the hand-counted Heceta PUD-only ballots.
Original source can be found here.
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