ANDREW TRUNSKY CONTRIBUTOR
Approximately one-third the mail-in ballots in Tarrant County, Texas have been rejected by scanners due to a defect in their barcodes, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
Heider Garcia, the county’s elections administrator, attributed the problem to the shop that printed that ballots, but assured that the ballots affected would still be counted, according to the Texas outlet.
The county’s election board is preparing to copy the misprinted absentee ballots onto new ballots and then scan those instead, Garcia said, adding that the board would likely have to redo 20,000 ballots before Election Day.
Garcia also acknowledged that this was not the first time the issue has arisen, though he conceded that the volume of ballots this year would make redoing ballots more challenging.
“We believe we have enough time and resources to do this,” Garcia said, according to the Star-Telegram.
BREAKING: @tarrantelection administrator Heider Garcia says scanners are rejecting 1/3 of Tarrant County mail ballots as defective because of a barcode problem.
Garcia said ballots must be recopied into new ballots by the ballot board under the election code.
— Brian Lopez (@brianlopeztx) October 27, 2020
The Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties have submitted 89 names of county residents to work on the board redoing the ballots, and they will be divided into pairs to redo the ballots. No two members of any pair of ballot reviewers will be from the same political party, the Star-Telegram reported.
“I can tell you that many of those people have been doing this for many years,” said County Judge Glen Whitley. “They are experienced and I trust them and they’re working very well together.”
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