Hundreds of electronic ballots emailed last week from Florida’s Palm Beach County incorrectly listed “Tom Walz” as the Democratic nominee for vice president, The New York Times reported Sunday.
His name is Tim Walz, of course, but it didn’t appear that way on 257 ballots sent to service members and voters abroad, as Wendy Sartory Link, the county elections supervisor, told the newspaper.
Link, a Democrat who’s running for reelection on that same ballot, said the office became aware of the mistake 18 hours after the ballots were distributed. Voters were notified and given the option of downloading an updated ballot, she said.
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Palm Beach County went decisively to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, although Donald Trump won the state.
In the upcoming election, poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight showed Trump up by an average of 4% in the state over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Palm Beach County has a checkered history in terms of balloting. In 2000, a so-called butterfly ballot used there is believed by some to have led thousands of Democratic supporters of Al Gore to accidentally vote for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan instead, in an election narrowly won by Republican George W. Bush. In 2018, Palm Beach County machines malfunctioned on a recount and missed the deadline for submitting results.
Link blamed the recent goof on a vendor making a “manual typed change” to what was an accurate ballot.
Whether the ballot reads “Tom Walz” or “Tim Walz,” an intended vote for the Democratic ticket will be properly tabulated, Link told the Times.
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