A Pettis County resident noticed an issue with their ballot when they went to the Second Ward polling station in the First Baptist Church to cast their vote in the General Municipal election on Tuesday, April 7.
The voter contacted officials and stated that, though they lived in the county, poll workers gave them a ballot that included the ward’s Sedalia City Council race.
Pettis County Clerk Megan Page said the use of the incorrect ballots happened early on election day, between 7 and 8 a.m.
“One of our polling locations discovered that some of our poll judges did not realize that there were two different ballot styles to give out, and they had been giving out one ballot style for everyone,” Page said. “Now, most of the people that vote at that polling location do get the same ballot style, but some people do live in the county and so they should have received a different ballot style.”
The Election Authority took steps to address the issue, but the votes had already been cast.
“With some research that we did, we realized that there were four voters impacted by this,” Page said. “So four voters did vote on the incorrect ballot.”
The city and county ballots differ because city residents vote for municipal offices that do not appear on the county-level ballot.
“The incorrect ballot did have the mayoral race on it and the second ward council member,” Page said.
The Clerk’s office notified state officials of the error shortly after it was discovered.
“I called the Secretary of State's office and spoke to the Director of Elections,” Page said. “She advised me that I need to document everything to be sure that they have factual information, and if the margin is within that number of voters impacted, I will petition the Circuit Court, and a judge will determine what we do moving forward.”
Page noted the Director of Elections did not seem entirely unfamiliar with this kind of voting problem.
“She knew the answer immediately to what I needed to do with this irregularity,” Page said. “So potentially they have run into this before and knew exactly what to do in this situation.”
Chris Howell can be reached at 660-530-0146.
