Two weeks before the May 19 primary election, an unknown number of Lehigh County voters have received the wrong mail-in ballots, while some duplicate ballots were sent out in Northampton County, officials confirmed Tuesday.
New Lehigh County Chief of Elections Michael Paston said that “human error” was responsible for a file from the 2025 primary being used to create ballots for this month’s election, affecting about 115 people who had switched political affiliation since the last election cycle. The error also affected an unknown number of people who have moved, as well as some newly registered voters.
Paston said that the vast majority — more than 99 percent — of the ballots were correct, and that his staff was working quickly to get new ballots out to everyone affected.
Some ballots arrived in the mailboxes of voters who are deceased, Paston said, but added that those ballots could not be used to tamper with the election since the digitized system wouldn’t accept them.
“Nobody’s voting who shouldn’t be voting, or voting on the wrong ballot,” he said.
Paston was just confirmed as the election chief by county commissioners last week and started on the job Monday, replacing Tim Benyo, who resigned in March to take a job with a nonprofit group.
The error occurred last month and was caught shortly after the first batch of mail-in ballots were sent last week. Voters who received the wrong ballots will be contacted by mail, Paston said, and will be permitted to request a new mail-in ballot be sent to them, or can pick one up at the county election office in Allentown.
They can also bring the flawed ballot to the polls and turn it in for a paper ballot, Paston said.
Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel said his office was working with the Department of State to fix the problem. He said there will be an investigation into what happened, and new policies put in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“I take these errors seriously, and rest assured, the buck stops with me,” Siegel said. “Believe me, we will be making sure that there is accountability and discipline, and proper procedures put in place. I am obviously disappointed and dismayed that this happened, and we will certainly make sure that, internally, there is a process of accountability.”
Northampton County officials were also grappling with their own mail-in ballot issue this week. A “limited number” of duplicate ballots were sent out due to a labeling issue, officials said at the county’s election commission meeting Tuesday.
Local politicians immediately sounded the alarm about the ballot snafu in Lehigh County. Democratic state Reps. Mike Schlossberg, Peter Schweyer, Jeanne McNeill and Ana Tiburcio and state Sens. Lisa Boscola and Nick Miller sent out a joint statement Tuesday:
“At a time when the integrity of our elections is under constant attack from extremists who want to end vote-by-mail, the last thing we need to do is hand them more rhetorical ammunition courtesy of this careless error by our county leadership,” the statement began, with the lawmakers then urging county officials to explain the problem and fix it.
“This error could be disenfranchising to the people of Lehigh County. We all deserve better.”
Siegel likened the statement to “throwing gasoline on the fire,” and said the politicians should be focused on allaying constituents’ concerns instead of providing grist for the election denier rumor mill.
“We are going to have a fair and free primary. To suggest anything other than that is just wildly irresponsible,” Siegel said.