Adams County voters will receive their ballots by the end of the day if they haven’t already, said Julie Jackson, an Adams County Clerk and Recorder spokesperson.
Jackson said the clerk’s office conducted an investigation as to why more than 60,000 ballots were discovered missing and mailed this week. The investigation found fault with a truck driver delivering the ballots to a U.S. Postal Service facility on Oct. 15.
Ballots are usually labeled with special documentation showing they have been paid for, Jackson said, so ballots are mailed out faster than other postage. Postal service spokesperson David Rupert said the batch of 60,000 ballots didn’t have the correct documentation and were rejected by an employee.
What followed was a communication breakdown, said both Rupert and Jackson. The truck driver apparently drove the truck back to the vendor’s parking lot and left the truck there. USPS and the clerk’s office were not notified that the ballots were rejected.
The truck then sat for a week in the lot until Adams County voters reported they had not been mailed their ballots.
Jackson said the vendor lot was secure and the ballots were safe while they sat for a week. However, she said the clerk’s office was still confused as to why USPS rejected the ballots in the first place. She said the ballots did have the documentation and USPS strayed from the typical protocol of immediately loading ballots for mail.
“It should have been reported to the plant manager as well as the Adams County Clerk and Recorder and the Secretary of State office,” Jackson said.
Maggie Kutcha, a resident of an Aurora trailer park, said she and other residents were included in the 60,000 voters who didn’t receive their ballots. Her husband received their ballots Wednesday night.
“There were two mail carriers out here sorting out stuff in the dark,” Kutcha said. “We sat down this morning and filled them out, and I just dropped them off.”
She said the ballot mix-up was “weird” but that the truck driver was “pretty irresponsible, either way.”