Andrea Insley, St. Ignace deputy clerk, holds a handful of bad ballots Thursday, July 31, that were sent to municipalities around the county. She, along with other clerks, awaits the shipment of corrected voting documents needed for the August 5 primary. Nine townships and two cities in Mackinac County received bad ballots, and although the problem was discovered in time to order replacement ballots from the state, on election night Tuesday, August 5, poll results are expected to be stalled by more than an hour, a result of the error. Voters will not be affected by the problem.

The unusable ballots, said County Clerk Mary Kay Tamlyn, were issued for the August 5 primary and were too wide for the voting machines. They were also programmed incorrectly, making it impossible for ballot machines to read them.

A rush order was made to replace the approximately 600 bad ballots, and the new ballots arrived Friday, August 1.

Only Bois Blanc and Brevort townships received ballots that could be read by the voting machines.

The errors were discovered during accuracy testing by area clerks.

The 11 municipalities now are preparing to duplicate absent voter ballots that were sent out with the errors. The process, said Mrs. Tamlyn, requires a Democrat and a Republican precinct worker to duplicate absentee ballot marks from the bad ballots to good ballots, allowing them to be read by the voting machines.

This work cannot begin until the polls close, which will delay getting final results to Mrs. Tamlyn on election night.

In the City of St. Ignace, Deputy Clerk Andrea Insley said Thursday, July 31, she had received about 40 absentee ballots so far.

Moran Township has more than 60 absentee ballots, which will need to be duplicated, said Mrs. Tamlyn.

This is the second time Hendricks Township ballots have been reprinted for this election, owing to errors by the state, said township clerk Sherry Cece. Ballots first arrived with a voting mistake in the township trustee section. The Democratic side of the ballot directed voters to cast a vote for no more than one candidate, when it should have said two candidates. When corrected ballots arrived, they had the timing problem.

Hendricks Township has 118 registered voters, but only one absentee voter in this election.