ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Lehigh County inadvertently sent hundreds of bad mail-in ballots to voters ahead of the May 19 primary, sending election officials scrambling for fixes ahead of primary races with statewide and national implications.
Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel confirmed Tuesday that a clerical error led county officials to use the May 2025 voter polls list to send out its May 2026 mail-in ballots.
"It's an honest mistake. It's undeniably human error. It was not malicious. It was a genuine oversight."Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel
The mistake means people who moved in the past year haven't received a ballot, that residents who changed political parties received the wrong ballot and that ballots were sent to the last address of voters who died over the past 12 months.
In addition, mail-in ballots were sent to some voters who did not request them in this years race, Siegel said.
Even if the voters received an official mail-in ballot that matches their party registration, their ballots will not be counted, as they were not allowed to vote by mail in this primary.
"It's an honest mistake," Siegel said. "It's undeniably human error. It was not malicious. It was a genuine oversight."
Focused on primary now
Neither Siegel nor Lehigh County Chief Clerk of Elections Michael Paston could say exactly how many ballots were affected by the error but said the total was in the hundreds.
They were certain that about 115 people who switched parties in the past year received the wrong ballot.
"Ninety-nine percent plus [of the ballots] are with the right people. The very, very large percentage [of voters] are getting the ballots they expected to get, and they’ll be fine."Lehigh County Chief Clerk of Elections Michael Paston
Between 100 and 200 mail-in ballots have been returned to the county election office since they were mailed Thursday, Paston said.
But he said it's unclear how many were due to the county's error and how many were due to voters failing to update their address.
Paston said his office is focused on conducting the May primary right now, but will begin looking to create fail-safes that will prevent similar errors.
The silver lining of the situation, he said, is that there weren't huge discrepancies between the May 2025 and May 2026 voter lists.
"Ninety-nine percent plus [of the ballots] are with the right people," he said. "The very, very large percentage [of voters] are getting the ballots they expected to get, and they’ll be fine."
Relying on safeguards
The moment is proving to be a trial by fire for Paston, who started his job Monday.
Former Chief Clerk of Elections Tim Benyo resigned in March, and the mistake occurred during a period of interim leadership in the office, Siegel said.
The first batch of Lehigh County mail-in ballots — about 23,000 — went out Thursday, Paston said. Since, 6,300 or so were sent out, but none of those should have errors, he said.
"I want to reassure the public that we have fail-safes and procedures in place to protect us from unlawful or invalid ballots from being counted."Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel
Siegel and Paston said that the 115 voters who were sent the wrong ballot will be contacted by mail and provided options on how to proceed.
They will be allowed to request a new mail-in ballot and either pick it up in person at the county election office or have it mailed to them, they said.
Alternatively, they can surrender the flawed mail-in ballot at their polling place on Primary Day and be allowed to cast a paper ballot.
Both men said safeguards required by the state and enacted by the county will identify the flawed ballots during the pre-canvass period.
The county also is working to mail ballots to the correct addresses of eligible voters who moved, they said.
"I want to reassure the public that we have fail-safes and procedures in place to protect us from unlawful or invalid ballots from being counted," Siegel said.
The bigger challenge may be notifying voters if they received a ballot they didn't request.
If those voters act in good faith and fill out their ballots, the same fail-safes would identify the ballot as invalid, even if the voter lives at the correct address and is registered to the correct party.
Paston said the county is not aware of how many such ballots were sent. At least one such ballot has been returned, and county election officials have instructed that individual on how to proceed, he said.
The county will work to contact voters in similar situations should more instances of the error occur, he said.
Races with potential consequences
Lehigh County Commissioner Geoff Brace was less than thrilled about that procedure when notified by a reporter of the error Tuesday.
"With two weeks left before the primary election, I really hope the board of elections gets this squared away so that people can exercise their right to vote in the primary."Lehigh County Commissioner Geoff Brace
"With two weeks left before the primary election, I really hope the board of elections gets this squared away so that people can exercise their right to vote in the primary," Brace said.
Lehigh County Democrats will cast ballots in four primary races that could have consequences in state and federal politics.
Four Democrats are competing for their party's nomination in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, which political observers have identified as among the nation's most coveted swing seats in the U.S. House.
Incumbent Ryan Mackenzie is running unopposed in the Republican primary for the seat, which covers Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties plus a sliver of Monroe County.
Democratic leaders also hope to flip Pennsylvania's 16th Senate District, which represents much of Lehigh County and the northern half of Bucks County.
Democrats Bradley Merkl-Gump and Mark Pinsley are competing for their party's nomination and the chance to face Republican incumbent Jarrett Coleman in the fall.
Winning the seat would give Democrats a chance to claim their first state Senate majority in decades.
