As many as 167 voters in Weber County may have received an extra ballot in their mail-in voting packets this election cycle. While residents do not get to vote twice, the error occurred due to a mistake by the printer hired by the county, according to Weber County Clerk Ricky Hatch.
The problem was first reported to the clerk's office by a voter who received one of the double-stuffed packets shortly after ballots were mailed out. Clerk Hatch explained that a miscalibrated envelope stuffing machine inadvertently placed two ballots into these packets.
Hatch stated that the printer indicated this issue had not happened before, attributing it to a "minute adjustment or setting on their equipment that could have been prevented." The exact number of affected voters is not known, but Hatch confirmed that the "absolute worst-case scenario" would be 167 voters receiving a duplicate ballot. This maximum number was determined because the print run came up 167 ballots short of the number of registered voters, meaning 167 fewer individual packets were produced than intended, likely due to ballots being grouped.
Clerk Hatch suspects the actual number of double-stuffed envelopes is "well below 100," though he noted he does not have information to back up that specific estimate. For broader context, Hatch emphasized the small scale of the issue, stating, "we mailed out 135,000, so we’re talking minuscule percentages." While the goal is "zero errors," Hatch described this as "a pretty small one" in the context of typical election challenges.
Voters who received two ballots should not return both. However, Clerk Hatch assured the public that several robust measures are in place to prevent any duplicate ballots from being counted if both are returned.
First, the machines that process incoming ballots are designed to measure the thickness of each envelope. If an envelope contains two ballots, the machine would likely flag it for further inspection by staff.
Second, if the machines do not detect the error, every ballot is subsequently opened by teams of three employees. These teams are trained to identify and would notice if an envelope contains two ballots instead of one.
Finally, if both the machine detection and human inspection steps fail, the error would be caught during the comprehensive ballot reconciliation process. At the conclusion of the count, the total number of ballots must precisely match the number of envelopes received. In the event of a discrepancy, a labor-intensive process is initiated to match the unique bar codes printed on the ballots with those on the envelopes, allowing for the identification and removal of any extra ballots.
To date, Weber County has processed 19,000 mail-in ballots. From this batch, the county has identified four envelopes that contained more than one ballot. Of these, two of the extra ballots were blank, while the other two were marked identically to the first ballot in their respective envelopes.
This incident is not the only ballot-related issue reported in the region this election cycle. In Utah County, the clerk’s office mistakenly sent notices to more than 6,000 voters, advising them that as first-time voters, they would need to include a photocopy of their identification if mailing in their ballots. It was later determined that thousands of these voters had either already provided the necessary identification when registering or had voted previously, and the notification was sent due to a clerical error.
