The 817 voters in upper Manoa who received two absentee ballots in the mail this week are being told to destroy them and wait for another envelope to show up in the mail next week, city election officers said Thursday.
City Clerk Bernice Mau and elections Administrator Glen Takahashi apologized for the error, blaming the situation on glitches and lack of oversight.
They emphasized, however, that enough safeguards exist in the system to prevent anyone from voting twice.
Voters are checked off as having voted when their envelopes are returned, Takahashi said. Additionally, "we do have an inventory and segregation process in place that we will be implementing to make sure that we take a special look at this particular precinct."
Takahashi said the problem appears to be confined to the 5th Precinct of the 23rd House District, which votes at Manoa Elementary School and stretches from Paradise Park to Woodlawn.
Officials learned of the problem when they received telephone calls from more than two dozen voters who had received two envelopes with ballots. They then contacted the vendor, Hagadone Printing Co.
The company, which has won the bid to print, package and mail absentee ballots in each election cycle since 2006, promised to cooperate in fixing the error, Takahashi said. Hagadone is being paid $20,891 to assemble and mail the 2012 primary and election ballots.
Hagadone officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The 817 voters have surnames starting with the letters M through Z, and had requested an absentee ballot early.
Hagadone began mailing absentee ballots Monday. More than 115,000 voters islandwide have requested absentee mail-in ballots so far.
The voters who received two ballots, which should have come with blue return envelopes, are being asked to destroy both of the ballots they received. Instead, they should return a third ballot, which will come with white return envelopes, that will be arriving in their mailboxes early next week, Takahashi said. If multiple ballots are returned, they will be deemed spoiled and not counted, he said.
Takahashi said that Hagadone workers assigned to assemble absentee mailing materials stopped part of the way through. When they began again, they started from the beginning instead of where they left off, leading to the duplication of materials sent to 817 voters.
Workers should have spotted the discrepancy in the assembly period, he said.
"We wish it was caught early on, but it was not," he said.
Other safeguards are being explored to ensure two ballots aren’t mailed out to absentee voters in the future, Takahashi said.
Mau said her office is confident the error was isolated because the vendor assembled the packages by precinct.
About 957 other voters in the district, with surnames starting in letters A through M, have not yet been mailed ballots. All subsequent ballots mailed to voters in the precinct should be OK, officials said.
Takahashi said he’s hoping that the mix-up will not delay the release of results on election night, Nov. 6.
City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, whose name is on the ballot in the 23rd House District, sat in on Thursday’s news conference by election officials. Kobayashi said she’s somewhat satisfied by the explanation and assurances she heard. However, she said, "Two ballots went out even though controls are in place. … How did this happen?"
Kobayashi’s comments were echoed by some voters in upper Manoa.
Huelani Drive resident Kenneth Rehg said he received two ballots in the mail, as did a neighbor.
"Unless the state moves quickly to correct this mistake, you can be assured that the general election will be, and should be, contested," Rehg said in an email.
