A Blair County printing company has taken full responsibility for the ballot error in Lancaster County that resulted in elections officials hand-counting about 22,000 ballots.
The count wrapped up Thursday afternoon, according to Lancaster news reports.
According to The Associated Press, Lancaster County officials said the contractor, Claysburg-based NPC Inc., sent the county test ballots with the correct ID code, but used the wrong code on the ones sent to voters. Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson Ellen Lyon said no other counties had reported similar issues.
Lancaster County officials said the incorrect printing happened after the elections staff approved test ballots -- which had the correct code -- so there was no way of knowing there was an issue until the ballots were legally opened Tuesday morning to begin opening the mail-in ballots and scanning them.
The Lancaster County Board of Elections and NPC addressed the problem in a statement to the media:
“NPC takes full responsibility for the file processing error that occurred when printing Lancaster County's initial absentee and mail-in
ballots. As a result, NPC printed the wrong identification code on approximately 22,000 Lancaster County ballots. This error occurred even though a rigorous testing process, which included testing sample ballots for each voting precinct, was completed prior to the election without incident.
“Unfortunately, such an error could not have been identified or corrected prior to the ballots being opened and scanned. Once the error was identified by Lancaster County Election Officials, NPC immediately coordinated with the county officials to send replacement ballots. NPC will continue working with the county officials to ensure the impact to the election process is minimalized. Going forward, NPC's version control practices have been revised to ensure only approved identification codes can be printed to avoid this situation from occurring again.”
NPC Inc. was chosen as the county's ballot printing vendor after a similar issue in last year's primary election had the county hand counting ballots printed by Michigan Election Resources. That issue involved the multi-sheet ballots being printed in the wrong order, making them unscannable.
“These types of errors are unacceptable and we hold the vendors responsible,” commissioners said in the news release.
NPC is a family-owned and operated company that has been in operation since 1954. Data and content management as well as secure printing and mailing are among the many services it offers to businesses as well as federal, state and local government entities, according to the company website.