By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
After advanced voting in Ellis County was delayed earlier this week due to an error in wording on the general election ballot, advanced voting in will begin Thursday morning.
Ellis County Clerk Donna Maskus said while the updated ballots have added and changed some verbiage, the position of each race remains in the same location and that means that the nearly 4,000 advanced ballots that were sent out will be counted.
“I want to assure the voters that everything will be tabulated correctly,” said Maskus. “All ballots will be ran through the DS-200 election equipment, and it will be able to tally everything.”
Maskus said that anyone who received the advanced ballot containing the error can an updated ballot but they have to return the old ballot.
“We will take it, and we’re happy to reissue a new one,” Maskus said. “I cannot give more than one ballot to a voter.”
Advanced voting will begin at 7 a.m. Thursday and continue until 5 p.m. each day up until the day before the election. Advanced voting is open from 7 a.m. to noon on Nov. 2.
The administrative office at 718 Main in Hays will also be open the next two Saturdays — Oct. 24 and Oct. 31 — will be open from 8 a.m. to noon.
Maskus said the county reordered 15,000 ballots at a cost of $3,900.
She added that her office should have detected the errors before the ballot was sent out.
“It should have been caught,” Maskus said. “I sincerely apologize that we did have that error.”
