About 200 Milwaukee voters to receive corrected absentee ballots after printing error

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- About 200 absentee voters living in the city of Milwaukee's aldermanic district five will receive new ballots in the mail after a printing error voided the first set. 

The City of Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg said the ballots originally printed with the candidates for the district five alderperson race in the wrong order.

Lamont Westmoreland should come before Annette Jackson on the correct ballots.

"This is an error that we share with the city. We printed them incorrectly. They didn't catch it when we sent out the proofs," Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said.

The error was discovered during the mailing process. 

Woodall-Vogg said the election commission identified which voters were sent the ballots, which minimized the impact.

Each voter will receive a corrected absentee ballot. They're instructed to spoil the first one and return the second one. 

Woodall-Vogg said all aldermanic district five absentee ballots will be processed at central count on April 4. Each one will be reviewed by two election workers to confirm the race appears in the correct order. If someone only returns the first ballot, they will reconstruct it to be on a corrected ballot. 

"I am confident that our system in place will ensure that no votes are lost or miscounted, and we will have an accurate, transparent vote count," Woodall-Vogg said in a statement. 

Woodall-Vogg said both candidates were contacted as soon as it was discovered. 

"I have faith in the election commission because they called us right away, as soon as they found out. They called, and she gave me a plan of action and what they were planning on doing to correct it," Jackson said. 

"I have no doubts that they'll get it correct," Westmoreland said.

Christenson said the city and county will share the cost to print new ballots, which will be about $2,500.