Imagine your city council was accidentally elected by folks living outside your city. And when you went to vote for your city council, you were mistakenly given a faulty ballot that didn’t allow you to cast a vote.
What if that kind of mistake affected the outcome of the election?
That’s what happened in a Northern Kentucky city on Election Day. Two months later, there’s still no fix.
A voter checks in with poll workers in Erlanger on Election Day. About 10 miles southwest, in Union, voters were given the wrong ballots.
In Union, a city of 7,600, voters in two precincts were given the wrong ballot. It mattered.
The local city council race and a ballot issue about medical marijuana were both decided by only a few dozen votes. Now, two months later, the matter is tied up in court. And no one’s sure if the right people are on city council.
Nobody disputes that mistakes were made on Election Day. So why is it so hard to find a solution?
‘We just don’t have any jurisdiction’
It turns out, Election Day mistakes are pretty common.
“It happens every election, really. I say that from personal experience because my staff review everything,” Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said.
The review process takes weeks and workers typically find small mistakes like typos or other transcription errors that don’t change the outcome of races.
But what happened in Union is rarer, he said, because the mistake may have affected election results.
There’s nothing his office can do about it, though, because it can only intervene in certain races – state, judicial, U.S. offices and a few others – or if there are crimes like bribery, violence, corruption, or election fraud.
Otherwise, local races – mayor, city legislative body, school board, county jailer, etc. – are the responsibility of the county clerk.
“They’re not state races, so we just don’t have any jurisdiction over it,” he said.
So who can fix this?
The way things are playing out in Union – legal battle and all – is normal throughout the country, according to Donald Palmer, vice chair of the United States Election Assistance Commission, which helps officials improve election administration and provides resources to voters.
“It’s going to be the court determines if the mistaken ballots could have or would have made a difference,” he said.
If so, a judge could toss out election results, order a new election, decide on a different legal remedy or let the results stand.
Adams said special elections don’t necessarily provide people with a better sense of who would have won an election. They yield low voter turnout, cost a lot of money and are difficult to staff.
Palmer said sometimes the legal remedy for election day mistakes is simply “lesson learned.”
How can this kind of thing be prevented?
The poll workers who made the mistake in Union underwent training and immediately called Boone County Clerk Justin Crigler’s office to report the error. They did what they were supposed to do in that situation.
But aside from more training, Adams said the best thing that can happen is a switch to upgraded equipment, like, print-on-demand ballots.
“I assume (what happened in Union) was just an innocent mistake by a person who’s working really hard under pressure, has gotten very little sleep and is being paid practically nothing,” he said. “But if you have print-on-demand, you don’t have that happen because, essentially, the poll worker scans the ID … and then that ballot gets printed just for them based on their very specific information versus having stacks and stacks of ballots.”
What happened in Union?
Union is run by a board of four people and a mayor, who is elected separately.
Five people ran for commission in the 2024 election and voters cast 9,280 votes.
At two polling places, Larry A. Ryle High School and the Union Firehouse, voters were given Union city election ballots even though not all of them lived in Union. The attorney for a candidate who lost alleges that some Union residents were given ballots that did include city council races.
Between 243 and 500 voters received the wrong ballot. The judge has used the 243 figure; the lawyer for the losing candidates alleges it’s 500.
On election night, here were the results:
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John Mefford (Incumbent): 2,227.
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Jeremy Ramage (Incumbent): 1,756.
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Brian F. Garner (Incumbent): 1,693.
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Douglas Bine (Incumbent): 1,628.
The snafu could have affected not just who serves on the commission but also a local ballot issue on whether to allow medical marijuana sales at licensed dispensaries in the city.
Voters approved the sale of medical marijuana in the city by 52%. That vote was 2,467 to 2,242.
Since former city Commissioner Douglas Bine lost reelection by 65 votes on Election Day, he’s argued in court that there’s no way to know what the vote would have been if everyone were handed the correct ballot.
He and his attorney, Steven Megerle, filed a restraining order Dec. 27 to try to prevent commissioners from taking office Jan. 1.
Boone County Clerk Justin Crigler argued in court documents that Circuit Court Judge Richard Brueggemann should dismiss Bine’s efforts to contest the election. That would mean the election results would stand, despite the errors.
But the judge rejected both Crigler’s and Bine’s recent legal efforts. Brueggemann has not offered a legal remedy yet.
The case is scheduled to be in court again Jan. 21.
This story was updated to add a video.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: No resolution 2 months after voters given wrong ballot