SF voters may have wrong mail-in ballots

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Thousands of absentee voters in San Francisco are learning their mail-in ballots may not be any good. Election officials are trying to find out exactly how many voters are affected by the mistakes.

Officials said there is no need to panic, there is still time to get this resolved in the mail or if you want to you can vote on Election Day at San Francisco City Hall -- no matter where in the city you are registered.

The faulty ballots are coming out of K&H Integrated Print Solutions in Everett, Washington. They are addressed to the right person, but inside the ballot that you put your name on has the wrong name on it in the return address section. If you send in that ballot it will be matched against a signature that is on file at the Elections Department and that won't match -- meaning your vote won't be counted.

About 175,000 voters in San Francisco use absentee ballots.

"What we will probably end up doing is reissue ballots to the people that we think are affected by this and also put a letter in the envelope explaining the issue and tell people that we think that you received the wrong ballot, or didn't receive the ballot -- and please vote with the ballot we sent you and destroy the first ballot," said K&H Printing Vice President David Haines.

K&H also sent out about 1,300 duplicate ballots, but if you try to use them both one is going to be disqualified. K&H has identified the problem as a mechanical one in Everett, Washington.

Elections Department officials are saying that it has identified a range of voters who have been affected by this. Right now officials have received about 50 phone calls, but as many as 1,000 people may have been affected by these faulty ballots.

For more information please contact:

San Francisco Department of Elections
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
Room 48
San Francisco Ca. 94102
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. M-F
Phone: (415) 554-4375

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voter information, election day, san francisco news, terry mcsweeney

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