Officials in Charlottesville sent out a civic alert on Monday afternoon stating that due to a clerical error, some voters failed to receive their ballot in the mail.
The Charlottesville Office of Voter Registration says they sent out close to 9,000 voting envelopes in mid-September. However, according to the civic alert, some of those envelopes did not contain the actual ballot.
“Around September 18, 2020, the Charlottesville Office of Voter Registration sent out and unprecedented 8,968 mail ballots to City voters. Due to a clerical error a small number of voters were mailed ballots without an Envelope A. Envelope A contains the actual ballot.“
Officials say that the ballots were mailed in three separate batches. The problem apparently occurred when the “second half of the smallest third batch was inadvertently labeled ‘ready’ before Envelope A, containing the ballot, was inserted.”
The officials say this error affected a small number of voters in Johnson, Buford, Venable, and Alumni Hall precincts.
- A voter who received their ballot package without Envelope A should call the Voter Registration Office at (434) 970-3250. We will reissue the ballot immediately. Alternatively, the voter can come to the office and vote in person.
- In addition to increasing our staffing to handle the unprecedented volume of early voting, we have also initiated further quality control measures to confirm each ballot package has an Envelope A within it. As the Director of Elections/General Registrar, Melissa A. Morton will be personally inserting each Envelope A (containing the ballot) into each mail ballot package.
- With each batch that is mailed, there is a Certificate of Mailing that lists what voters were mailed ballots within that batch. As stated, we have isolated this issue to a small portion of a specific batch.
- Only one ballot can be checked in per voter. In order to protect the integrity of the election process, a loose, unassociated mail ballot cannot be checked in or counted.
Any voters should contact the Charlottesville Office of Voter Registration immediately if they have not received an Envelope A within their ballot package.
“The Office of Voter Registration and Elections sincerely apologizes for this error and will take all necessary steps to correct this error immediately and ensure it does not happen again.”
As local newsrooms are losing writers each day, we are trying to fill the void to ensure that the public is informed and that leaders are held accountable for their actions. If you can chip in a monthly subscription of whatever you can afford, even $1, it will go a long way to helping us. Subscribe here.
