Carson City voters to receive new, corrected ballots

On Monday, after the Appeal reported an error in Carson City General Election mail ballots voters received Saturday, Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen announced the office would be resending mail ballots with corrections.

“The Carson City Clerk-Recorder is resending ballots to all Carson City voters following the discovery of an error on ballots mailed to voters,” the Clerk-Recorder’s Office said in a news release. “Candidate Lynn Chapman was mistakenly identified as Democrat or ‘DEM’ on the mail ballot, but the correct designation, which appears here, is Independent American Party or ‘IAP.’

“Every voter will receive a new ballot, listing the correct party affiliation, which will be mailed the week of Oct. 14.”

That error the Appeal found was regarding the race for U.S. Congress District 2. Other candidates are incumbent Mark Amodei, a Republican, Greg Kidd who is not affiliated with a political party, and Javi “Trujillo” Tachiquin of the Libertarian Party of Nevada.

If voters have already returned their original mail ballot, the release said, “please complete the corrected ballot, and return it according to the instructions.”

For those who have not voted on the original ballot, the release said, “please wait until you receive a corrected mail ballot to mark your choices and return your corrected ballot according to the instructions.”

“Alternatively, you may appear to vote in-person during the early voting period or on Election Day,” the release said.

Election Day is Nov. 5, and early voting begins Oct. 19.

Hoen told the Appeal in-person voting will not be affected by the errors. He said original mail ballots will still be counted if the office doesn’t receive corrected ballots, though he couldn’t explain the ramifications of someone thinking they were voting for an improperly identified partisan candidate.

Hoen also couldn’t provide a cost estimate for the re-balloting in time for the Appeal’s deadline Monday but confirmed the error in a federal race made corrected ballots necessary.

“Return ballot envelopes have unique IDs assigned to the voter and in-person voters are tracked through Nevada’s Voter Registration Election Management System, ensuring that only one ballot will be counted,” the release said. “All returned original ballots will be held until the corrected ballot is returned or the voter votes in person. If the corrected ballot from a voter who returned the original ballot is not returned and the voter does not vote in person, the Clerk-Recorder’s office will count the original ballot.”

Hoen pointed out the sample ballot, which some residents hadn’t received as of Monday, had the correct information. Another error in the mail ballot was corrected in a notice obtained by the Appeal on Monday. That error was from spelling Carson City School District Trustee 5 candidate Ashliee Saucedo’s first name wrong. On the original mail ballot, it was spelled “Ashilee.”

The Appeal contacted the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office for comment on the first error regarding party affiliation but did not hear back before the Appeal’s deadline.