UPDATE: On Wednesday, Phoenix Graphics, which printed the ballots, is responding to the ballot printing problem. Sal DeBiase, President, of the company issued this statement:
"We at Phoenix Graphics have learned that we experienced mechanical-inserting issues when producing 2020 General Election Absentee ballots for Kings County and Nassau County. We estimate this has affected less than 1 percent of the mailings, of what was the first of many absentee-ballot orders for these counties. Future mailings will not be affected. Phoenix Graphics is in the process of reprinting and mailing all materials to correct the project and will be covering all expenses related to production and postage.
We have prided ourselves on accuracy and quality in our 40-year history of printing ballots. We are truly sorry for the inconvenience that has occurred. We are actively making necessary production adjustments to prevent such errors in the future.
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Previous story:
(AP & WXXI News) A Rochester printing company is involved in a situation that caused some confusion for people voting by absentee ballot in the New York City area.
Mail-in voting has gotten off to a rocky start in parts of New York City, where election officials sent out a large number of absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses on the return envelopes.
The faulty ballots were sent to an unknown number of voters in Brooklyn and could result in ballots being voided if voters sign their own name on return envelopes bearing different names. More than 140,000 ballots have already been sent out so far across the borough. It was unclear how many people got the wrong envelopes.
The New York City Board of Elections blamed the problem on the vendor hired to print and mail the ballots for voters in Brooklyn and Queens. There are also some reports of the faulty ballots going to voters in Nassau County on Long Island.
The ballots were printed by Rochester-based Phoenix Graphics.
Gothamist.com reported that the New York City Board of Elections announced a plan to print and mail new absentee ballots to nearly 100,000 voters who received erroneous envelopes in their absentee ballot packages. It also reported that Phoenix Graphics has agreed to pay for the cost of the additional printing of the ballots.
A Board of Elections official in New York City said the proper ballots and envelopes would get to voters before the November 3 election.
Phoenix Graphics does also do printing for the Monroe County Board of Elections, but Republican Elections Commissioner Lisa Nicolay said the problem with the absentee printings was confined to those downstate counties.
