Kerry left off some absentee ballots

Barry M. Horstman - Post staff reporter

Some absentee ballots distributed to Hamilton County voters do not include the name of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, local election officials confirmed today.

Because of a printing error -- limited, election officials believe, to only a few ballots in the Forest Park area -- absentee ballots recently mailed out exclude the Democratic presidential ticket of Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards.

"It's a screw-up," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "This just feeds the paranoia that's out there. The tragic thing is that even though I think we will have a very fair and accurate count here, this will cause people to question the accuracy of our operation."

Although election officials believe only two voters have received the inaccurate ballot to date, Burke said he is worried that the mix-up "will open us up to all kinds of questions and concerns." He also conceded that some may question whether the problem is, indeed, limited to only a few ballots.

"I'm happy we're talking about a very small number," Burke said. "But it's something that never should have happened."

One of the voters who received the inaccurate ballot said today she "just couldn't believe it" when she opened her absentee ballot envelope and noticed that Kerry's name was missing.

"I knew enough to see something was wrong," said the voter, who asked not to be identified. "But you wonder whether others maybe didn't notice it before they sent their ballots back."

The printing error is the second major mistake to plague Hamilton County's absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 election.

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