After “human error” mistakenly revealed to Republican and independent voters that their party allegiance had been altered to favor Democrats last week, a local printing business sparked fury on Long Island.
Voter identification cards were sent to Nassau County voters this week. The cards provide voters with important information regarding their voting status in advance of the primary election later this month. But the cards had a very obvious flaw.
Each and every card’s party affiliation indicated to voters that the owner is a registered Democrat. About 500,000 registered Republicans, independents, as well as supporters of other political parties in Nassau County found that startling.
The error, according to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R), rightly infuriated voters.
“We’re already getting phone calls from folks asking, I am a registered Republican, I am a registered Conservative – why am I being classified as a Democrat? Who altered my registration, I wonder. And they’re very outraged about it,” he stated, according to WNBC-TV.
Who is remorseful?
Rochester-based printing business Phoenix Graphics attributed the incident to “human error.”
According to a statement from the business, WABC-TV reports:
“A human mistake was committed by Phoenix Graphics Inc. while producing voter identification cards for Nassau County. The information about the polling places is accurate, however the voters’ party membership may have been wrong on the first mailing. We accept responsibility for that. When it was found, we took quick action to fix the problem.”
“While this is a rare incident, we sincerely regret our error and extend our sincere apologies to Nassau County authorities, who are not to blame for this issue. We have addressed the problem, and we will provide updated voter information cards without charging taxpayers any money.”
Despite the problem, county authorities affirmed that every voter’s affiliation in the official board of elections database was unaffected. The business is nevertheless issuing new cards.
“Today, new cards are being given with the right Party information and an apology from the vendor in question. This is just a vendor issue that is being promptly fixed since all voter information is valid in our system,” said to Jim Scheuerman, the Democratic elections commissioner for Nassau County.
