Jacksonville, FL — After nearly 1,700 ballots were slightly too big to be read by machines at some Duval County polling locations during the August 28th primaries, we're now learning how the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office plans to address the issue ahead of the midterms.
Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan says his office met with the vendor responsible for printing the ballots, ES&S, on Thursday.
Hogan says the company has profusely apologized and understands the importance of getting everything right during elections.
"They have accepted complete responsibility. We're talking about what the remuneration will be, as far as financially. I told him that we would get all our numbers together, the extra overtime.... and the ripple effect of all of that," says Hogan.
But he says the one thing that can't be repaid is the loss in voter confidence.
"I explained to him that I was expecting a letter of apology and also a letter accepting full responsibility for the ballots being cut wrong-- and all of that has been agreed to," says Hogan.
Look ahead to the midterms, Hogan says they're taking a number of steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.
He tells the company is going to add additional quality control measures with their printer vendor and add additional testing to make sure the ballots are right.
"I'm confident they're going to be able to do it perfectly this time. They usually do, they are a good vendor," says Hogan.
Hogan believes this particular issue was tied to human error, with a technician likely setting up the ballot cutters incorrectly.