Glitch Forces Gwinnett Co. to Reprint 10,000 Absentee Ballots  (GA)

Kaitlyn Pratt     My Fox Atlanta    24 October 2008

A voting glitch in Gwinnett County has forced elections officials to reprint 10,000 absentee ballots.  The ballots were filled out by voters, but are unreadable.

There was a wet wait Friday for Gwinnett County voters lined up to cast their ballots early.  Some of the conversations while Gwinnett County residents waited to do their civic duty centered on the flawed absentee ballots sent out in the county.

 A printing mistake rendered the ballots unreadable by machines that read and count the votes.

The problem isn't clearly noticeable to the naked eye.

Elections leaders discovered the problem during tests last week, after more than 19,000 absentee ballots had been sent out and 10,000 of them returned.

Elections workers will now have to transfer votes from the bad ballots to the new ones on November 4.

The cause may be pinpointed by county leaders said it wasn't clear what the cost of fixing the problem will be.

County leaders said they will keep copies of both the bad and the new ballots in case of an election audit.