Many voters in Humboldt County are getting election ballots incorrectly identifying them as White Pine County residents.
The Humboldt County Clerk tells 2 News the ballot error can be fixed.
Voters who are concerned about perjury for voting on the ballot that says they live in White Pine County can simply cross out “White Pine” and write in “Humboldt”.
She says that is the only printing error.
The return address for the ballots is correct, so if people choose to mail their ballots, they will go to Humboldt County.
Each ballot has a bar code that connects to each individual voter, and those are still correct.
People can still choose to vote by mail by changing the the county name on the envelope, drop the ballots off in-person or forfeit the ballots when they vote in-person.
The Clerk plans to talk to the Secretary of State’s Office to clarify if there are any other issues that they have to resolve.
In response to errors on mail ballot materials (not the ballot itself) in Humboldt and Lyon Counties, Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske issues the following statement:
Late last week, the Secretary of State’s office was made aware issues related to mail ballot materials received by registered voters in Lyon County and Humboldt County. In Lyon County, the instructions sheet included in the mail ballot packet erroneously claims that only the voter or an immediate family member may drop off a ballot in person. This is a reference to an old law that was changed pursuant to Assembly Bill 4 of the most recent special session of the Nevada Legislature. Under the new law, a voter may request that any other person return their ballot on their behalf. A person providing assistance in this regard does not have to be a family member. Election officials in Lyon County failed to update this section of their instructions sheet after the passage of Assembly Bill 4.
In Humboldt County, the voter declaration printed on the ballot return envelope erroneously refers to White Pine County instead of Humboldt County. Both counties share the same ballot printing vendor, and while reviewing the proof of the ballot return envelope prior to printing, Humboldt County election officials failed to notice a reference to White Pine County had not been changed to Humboldt County. All other information on the ballot return envelope is correct, including the return address for the Humboldt County Clerk. This means ballots mailed using the incorrect ballot return envelope will be delivered to the correct county.
In both counties, the county clerk is reprinting the materials that contain incorrect statements and will send the corrected materials, along with a letter explaining the issue, to all active registered voters in the county. It is important for voters to note that the ballot material errors in these two counties have no effect on whether their mail ballot will be accepted and counted. The mail ballots that were sent to registered voters in both counties are accurate and can be used by those voters if they want to vote by mail. In the case of Humboldt County, voters can use the ballot return envelope that was originally sent to them, or they can wait and use the new ballot return envelope that will be sent to them. If they use the old ballot return envelope, voters can cross out “White Pine” on the voter declaration and replace it with “Humboldt.” However, this is not required, and no ballots in Humboldt County will be disqualified simply because they are returned using the inaccurate ballot return envelope.
