Maricopa County sending replacement ballots to 618 voters after error

• Maricopa County is mailing replacement ballots to 618 voters
• The voters got a return envelope%2C which doubles as a voting affidavit%2C that did not match their name and address
• County elections officials attribute it to a %22glitch%22 with their printer%2C Runbeck Election Services

Maricopa County is sending new ballots to 618 voters who received faulty return envelopes, an error that could have nullified their votes in next month's general election.

Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell called it a "glitch" by the county's printer, Runbeck Election Services. Replacement ballots are on their way, she said Monday.

For reasons that are still unclear, the company's machinery stuffed ballot affidavits bearing a voter's name and address into envelopes that did not match the same voter information.

Anne Brady received one of those mailings and immediately noticed the problem. While her early ballot arrived promptly at her home, the address on the return envelope — which doubles as an affidavit attesting that the voter personally marked their ballot — carried her husband's name. If she had signed the affidavit, it would have been tossed because it did not match the name on the affidavit.

Likewise, her husband noticed that his early ballot's return envelope and affidavit contained the name and address of a woman who lives in the same ZIP code as the Bradys.

Brady said she found it odd that the county's response was so casual, and questioned what the likelihood was that two people at the same address would be affected by a problem that apparently only reached 0.05 percent of voters getting early ballots.

Purcell said there was no apparent geographic or alphabetic pattern to explain the 618 mismatched ballot envelopes.

The error was discovered last week when a voter contacted phoned in the problem to the call center at the county's election office. and three voters called a local television station.

Purcell said the Bradys' erroneous return envelopes were detected by Runbeck after the vendor reviewed all 1.3 million early ballots mailed out for the Nov. 4 election.

Before the ballots are mailed, the vendor takes a photo of the front of the envelope, which displays both the voter's mailing address and, in a separate window, the voter's address as printed on the return affidavit. The vendor then flagged any photos that showed a mismatch and compiled a list of voters who needed a replacement ballot.

"It was my understanding they spent most of the night checking them, because we told them to," Purcell said.

Purcell said she is confident Runbeck has found all of the problematic mailings. However, her office does not do spot checks of the photos, due to staffing limitations.

A review is needed, she said. "There will be a time after the election when we will sit down with the printer," Purcell said, adding there isn't enough time in the next two weeks. "It seems to me there are issues of quality control here."

She added the cost of sending replacement ballots will be picked up by Runbeck, not taxpayers.

On Tuesday, an independent voter group called Somos IndependentsCQ issued a news release urging Purcell to fire the printing firm.

This is the second time this election year the county made errors on a ballot, the first involving a candidate for the Peoria City Council who was left off the ballot. That initial error was made by Purcell's office, but after a second erroneous ballot for the Peoria race was issued, the blame rested with Runbeck.

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and via Twitter @maryjpitzl