About 600 Juneau residents may have accidentally been sent two ballots for the upcoming municipal election. That’s due to a miscommunication between the city and the company that prints and mails the municipal ballots, city officials said.
The Municipal Clerk’s Office, which runs municipal elections, announced the mistake Wednesday afternoon. Andi Hirsh, a deputy clerk for the City and Borough of Juneau, said the office became aware of the issue after people started calling in about it soon after ballots were sent out on Sept. 12.
“This won’t happen again. I’m not worried about this,” she said. “People are not going to be able to vote twice even though they got two ballots.”
Hirsh said the city believes the error happened after the company that prints and mails the city’s ballots, K&H Printers, didn’t discard the ones for voters who had updated their voter registration or submitted a questioned ballot in the State Primary Election in August.
Hirsh said that those who do receive two ballots should vote only one of them, and destroy the other. She said you can do that by simply ripping it up and disposing of it.
And, despite the error, she said people won’t be able to vote twice. CBJ Elections has protocols in place to ensure only one ballot from a voter is accepted.
“We have a bunch of processes in place to make sure that it’s secure. And a lot of those, I think people don’t necessarily see but I just want people to know that they’re there and they were in place before this, and they’ll stay in place after this,” she said.
Hirsch said people can call the clerk’s office with any questions or concerns about the ballots. She said the city plans to look further into what caused the issue after the election concludes.
Voters have a few ways to return their ballots. The city has ballot drop boxes in different locations throughout the borough. Voters can also mail the ballot, or go to one of the two vote centers in town. Ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day, which is Tuesday, Oct. 1.
