District 2 Ballot Mailing Notice - Town Clerk's Office

Clerk Notice Kittery

On October 27, 2020 the Kittery Town Clerk’s Office identified an error in the mailing of District 2 absentee ballots.  Following an analysis of the error, the Clerk’s Office identified that 27 voters in District 2, whose absentee ballots were processed on October 1 and mailed on October 2, were accidently given a District 1 ballot in error.  Two of the ballots issued in error have been corrected.

Upon identifying the issue, the Town Clerk quickly contacted the Secretary of State’s Office and developed a plan to rectify the error.  The Town Clerk is also contacting the candidates in District 2 regarding the error.

Prior to receiving ballots from the State on September 28th, the processing of absentee ballot applications involved pre-addressing and sorting election envelopes for each absentee ballot application received.  This process ensured staff could issue the absentee ballots to voters via mail as quickly as possible.  Approximately 21 days before the ballots were received from the State, the Town had exhausted its election envelope supply and was unable to prepare envelopes and sort them in advance. 

Once the ballots and more envelopes were received from the State, the staff proceeded to fill the envelopes and prepare them to mail.  At this point, the Town Clerk believes a human error occurred in not sorting out the District 2 mailing labels from the District 1 labels, resulting in all of the envelopes processed in that batch receiving District 1 ballots.  The impacted District 2 voters would have received their ballots by mail between October 2nd and October 9th.  The Town has calculated that no more than 27 District 2 absentee ballot applications, of the 438 total District 2 absentee ballots issued to date, were impacted. 

The Town regrets the human error and is working with the Secretary of State’s Office to correct situation.  The Town of Kittery believes in the solemn responsibility involved in administering an election and strives for perfection in processing, despite any challenges created by the unusual circumstances of this year. 

The Town Clerk will contact any voters who are identified as having received an incorrect District ballot and will work with these individual voters to get them the proper District ballot.