“Imperfections in Barcodes” – Ballot Printing Error in Nevada County, California Causes Scanning Issues with 77,000 Mail-In Ballots

Another day, another issue with ballot counting machines.

A ballot printing error in Nevada County, California caused scanning issues with 77,000 mail-in ballots.

According to election officials, there were imperfections in the barcodes which prevented the ballot scanners from counting the ballots properly.

They diagnosed the issue as an ink overspray on some of the barcodes.

CBS News reported:

Nevada County is having trouble with their mail-in ballots due to a printing error. With Election Day nearing, county officials are working around the clock to fix the problem.

Nevada County’s elections office first realized something was wrong on Monday. The next day, they diagnosed the problem, and the error was specific to vote-by-mail ballots. They’re not sure exactly how many of the 77,000 ballots issued were affected, but they have a plan to rescan the ones that are.

“A lot of the public is very nervous about the process, about the results,” said Penn Valley resident Leilani Vevang.

The county’s machines weren’t properly reading all the ballots, so they called the California Secretary of State’s Office. The printing service then diagnosed the issue as an ink overspray on some of the bar codes.

“Some of our ballots, if you look really closely and use a magnifying glass, you will see that there is imperfections in the bar codes,” said Nevada County Clerk Recorder Natalie Adona. “We will use a report and say, ‘OK, which pages did not go through?’ We’ll pull those out and we’ll mark them as to be rescanned, and we will rescan them with a piece of paper where the bar code is very clear.”

Sounds legit!

Watch:

ALERT: A ballot printing error in Nevada County, CA, has caused scanning issues with 77,000 ballots, preventing the ballot counting machines from reading them properly. pic.twitter.com/aYqzVWdtGn

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 29, 2024