Thirty-four Freestone County voters were affected when a group of vote-by-mail files were misplaced.
Although things did not go as planned, all thirty-four ballots were accounted for in the end.
The County is contracted with Election Systems & Software (ESS), a company out of Omaha, Nebraska, to handle mail-in ballots, explains County Clerk Linda Jarvis.
According to a letter from ESS, they admit that on April 20th and 21st, a group of vote-by-mail files had been inadvertently uploaded to an incorrect location on their computer system.
Then on March 5th, officials discovered that these same files had never been re-filed to the correct location; which resulted in thirty-four voters not receiving their mail-in ballots.
Ballots by mail were required to be received by Election Officials no later than March 6th (Election Day).
ESS says that while this was an isolated incident, they have developed a series of quality assurance procedures to prevent such an error from happening again in the future.
Mrs. Jarvis confirms that each of the thirty-four voters affected by ESS’s mistake were contacted and asked to vote in person at their local polling place.
