Hampton ballot mailed out with errors: Here's what officials are doing about it

HAMPTON — Local officials spent last week scrambling to fix errors discovered on the March 12 printed ballots for both the town and school district’s upcoming elections.

The issue led to an emergency meeting of the Board of Selectmen on Feb. 29, where Town Manager Jamie Sullivan and Town Clerk Shirley Doheny explained the steps being taken to rectify the situation. That includes reprinting the appropriate pages of the town and SAU 90 ballots and getting corrected versions out to the roughly 100 residents who received the incorrect absentee ballots already.

According to Sullivan, the town ballot problem occurred on Article 17, which relates to the new multi-year contract for the fire supervisors union. In the incorrect version, under the paragraph that discussed the costs involved, there was additional wording concerning the town’s undesignated fund balance that has nothing to do with the contract.

Selectmen Chairman Rich Sawyer attributed the error to the misplaced cutting and pasting of wording from something discussed at the town’s deliberative session.

“It was human error,” Sawyer said. “It happens.”

According to Sullivan, Doheny discovered the problem with Article 17, and immediately reported it. She also had to tell the board of another mistake on the SAU 90’s ballot relating to those running for seats on the School Board.

Doheny, the clerk for both the town and school district, told the board there are two seats on SAU 90's School Board up for election, but the original printed ballot indicated voters should vote for “not more than one.”

Sullivan said they contacted the state's secretary of state’s office to learn how to handle the mistakes on the ballot. The office, he said, recommended reprinting a corrected version of the ballot and remailing it to all those who received absentee ballots so far.

That process is being followed, Sullivan said, with the expectation the new pages of the town and school ballot would be in by Monday.

The corrected versions will be re-mailed with a letter from the clerk explaining the situation, Sullivan said.

Markings on envelopes will allow the clerk’s office to recognize the corrected ballots returned so they can be tracked and appropriately tabulated to ensure ballots are not counted twice. However, should some absentee voters not return corrected ballots, Doheny said original ballots will be counted.

Kyle Averill, president of Hampton’s Professional Firefighters Association, said he was notified of the problem when it was first discovered, and he’s hopeful the error won’t interfere with the passage of the article.

Averill said Article 17, for the new fire supervisors' contract, is important as is Article 16, the new contract for the town’s firefighters. Both represent salary increases to compensate the town’s emergency responders at levels considered competitive with those offered by other Seacoast communities.

Just two people are running for Hampton School Board – Wendy Rega and Molly McCoy “St. Jeanne” – so the ballot mistake shouldn’t hamper the School Board from filling its ranks.

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How much will ballot mistakes cost the town?

Corrected sample ballots were already posted on the town’s website. But as for how much the rest will cost, Doheny said Monday she hasn’t yet been notified of the exact costs involved from the Newburyport printing company used by Hampton. Fortunately, only the two pages bearing the two questions involved will have to be reprinted.

Clerk office staffers will re-collate the ballots, pulling out the affected pages and replacing them with corrected versions, before the March 12 election.

However, duplicate mailings to the hundred or so who have already received the erroneous ballots will not come cheap. According to Doheny, it cost $2.11 in postage to mail out the former absentee ballot package by ordinary U.S. Postal Service.

Given the time restraints of an election taking place next Tuesday, she said the town’s investigating if it should send some “priority mail,” especially to those currently out of state.

As for the expense to voters of returning their absentee ballots twice, Doheny thought of that, too. She told the Board of Selectmen the corrected ballots will be sent out with return postage stamped on them.

No matter the expense, Sullivan assured board members the town would “find the money” to cover it.

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Sawyer said while no one likes mistakes, they happen sometimes. He’s pleased at the speed with which town officials acted to resolve the problem.

Doheny apologized for the mistakes. She said she’s already investigating how they were made and taking steps to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.

Sawyer told the board that when contacted about the ballot errors, the secretary of state’s office clearly had dealt with similar circumstances because they didn’t appear “shocked.”

“It was shocking to us because it never happened before,” Sullivan said. “Hopefully, we’ve had our one hiccup, and we won’t do it again.”

Those with questions regarding their absentee ballot may contact the Hampton town clerk at 603-926-0406.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Hampton scrambles to correct ballot errors before March 12 election