Registrar of Voters says mistake on ballots has been corrected

Editor’s Note: Registrar was misspelled in the headline. We apologize for the error.

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters Steve Rayborn announced Thursday that his office uncovered a ballot error that could affect some voters.

According to Rayborn, his office discovered that about 655 registered voters were incorrectly assigned and the Family Court race was left of their ballots.

Rayborn said the error was fixed and would contact those who already voted and received an incorrect ballot to come in person by 4:30 p.m. Friday to the East Baton Rouge Registrar of Voters at 11010 Coursey Blvd or the office in City Hall to vote on the right ballot.

Those voting on election day will already have the corrected ballot.

Rayborn said the affected voters lived in apartments on Mead Road and Southfork Avenue.

Read his full statement below.

I am writing to inform you that my office discovered a district assignment error late yesterday in Ward 3 Precinct 27 related to the Family Court race.

This precinct is split by Family Court Election Sections 2 and 3. Yesterday, we discovered that approximately 655 registered voters were incorrectly assigned in our voter registration database to Election Section 2 rather than Election Section 3. All of the affected voters live in large apartment complexes on Mead Road and Southfork Ave.

We have already corrected the precinct registers (voter registration lists) that will be used at this precinct on election day, and all election day voters will receive the correct ballot.

Some voters in this precinct who had the incorrect district assignment have already voted, including 46 in-person early voters and 13 voters who have returned a voted absentee ballot. We began contacting these voters this morning and offering that they may vote a corrected ballot (i.e. containing the Family Court race) today or tomorrow either at our downtown office in City Hall or at our branch office on Coursey Blvd. Several of these voters have come in already to vote a corrected ballot.

We are also contacting an additional 12 voters who were mailed absentee ballots but have not returned them, providing the same option to them and also offering that they may vote in-person on election day at their assigned polling place.

Steve Rayborn, Registrar of Voters for East Baton Rouge Parish