More than half of Franklin Co. voters affected by ballot error have now voted

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) - The Franklin County Board of Elections says it’s making progress processing tens of thousands of replacement absentee ballots. At the start of early voting, the board sent out the replacements after almost 50,000 voters reported receiving the wrong ballots in the mail. The error was traced back to a malfunctioning scanner on a sorting machine.

By Friday morning, the board said 26,301 voters affected by the mistake had since returned their replacement absentee ballot or voted early in-person. The proportion accounts for 53 percent of the total voters impacted.

“There’s a high confidence level and people should be reassured that we’ll get those ballots and we’ll get them processed,” explained Aaron Sellers, the public information officer at the Franklin County Board of Elections.

Some voters reported to NBC4 they have not received notification their returned ballot was accepted. Sellers explained the lag in processing the ballots is due to extra security measures. Each replacement ballot returned is hand-audited to ensure it’s the correct version and placed in the correct envelope.

“They go through by hand and open each one -- to make sure it’s the corrected replacement ballot,” Sellers said.

The board is almost caught up with all of the replacement ballots returned and Sellers anticipates voters who have cast their absentee ballot will receive notifications in the coming days.

“Rest assured that that ballot is here and it will be updated as soon as it’s processed. And we’re almost through what we’ve got,” he said.

Absentee ballot applications are due by October 31 at noon. The ballots must be postmarked by November 2 or dropped off in-person at the Board of Elections by 7:30 p.m. on Election Night.