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.<\/p>\n
New Lehigh County Chief of Elections Michael Paston<\/a> said that \u201chuman error\u201d was responsible for a file from the 2025 primary being used to create ballots for this month\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Paston said that the vast majority \u2014 more than 99 percent \u2014 of the ballots were correct, and that his staff was working quickly to get new ballots out to everyone affected.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t accept them.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody\u2019s voting who shouldn\u2019t be voting, or voting on the wrong ballot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n They can also bring the flawed ballot to the polls and turn it in for a paper ballot, Paston said.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n \u201cI take these errors seriously, and rest assured, the buck stops with me,\u201d Siegel said. \u201cBelieve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n