BURLINGTON — An error on the city of Burlington’s voter checklist caused 87 voters, until this week, to be listed in the wrong state representative district, according to an email from a city official obtained by VTDigger.
The error comes after another earlier this month that caused five Republican candidates for justice of the peace to have their names omitted from early and absentee voter ballots.
This new error affected one of three contested races in the Queen City for the state House of Representatives. Republican Scot Shumski, a member of the Burlington School Committee, is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Jean O’Sullivan for one seat.
The city mistakenly listed 87 registered voters as being in state representative district 6-1 instead of district 6-2. The city has corrected the error, said Scott Schrader, the city’s assistant chief administrative officer, in an email Monday to Shumski.
The problem likely stems from a coding error when converting district designations during the redistricting, he wrote.
Residents of the Thayer senior housing complex next to the Ethan Allen shopping center in the New North End are affected by the error. The mistake affected odd-numbered addresses from 1195 to 1199 North Avenue, city officials said.
Of the 87 voters impacted, 14 had requested and received absentee ballots, Schrader said. Of the 14, five had already returned ballots, Schrader wrote to Shumski.
City officials have called the 14 voters who received ballots and offered to have ballots delivered to them in person by justices of the peace, or mailed to them, he said. One voter asked for a delivery and the rest agreed to have ballots mailed, Schrader wrote.
There are seven House districts in Burlington. District 6-1 is a two-seat district with six candidates.
The city was alerted to the problem after a voter, Julia Barnes, told O’Sullivan she had voted for her, according to Schrader’s email. Barnes is executive director of the state Democratic Party.
O’Sullivan on Tuesday in a phone interview said she had thought, until August, that the Thayer complex was in her district. But at a macaroni and cheese dinner she holds regularly with seniors at Thayer, someone told her she was incorrect.
O’Sullivan checked the voter registration list and sure enough, those voters were actually in district 6-2 so she stopped campaigning there, she said. But then, last week, a voter she thought was in the other district told O’Sullivan she had voted for her.
“She (Barnes) said, ‘Hey, I just voted for you!’ I said, ‘Hey! You can’t,” O’Sullivan said. When O’Sullivan contacted the city, officials confirmed the error.
“I’m so excited to have them back,” she said. She does not believe this was the result of “malfeasance” by the city, simply human error, she said.
Schrader, who did not return calls for comment Tuesday afternoon, confirmed the error Monday to Shumski, who said he noticed it as he read an absentee ballot request report from the city.
Shumski saw addresses listed in his district that had not been part of his district in the past, he said. Shumski said he felt he would not have been notified if he had not spotted the error himself.
“You just switched an entire housing development from one district to another just weeks before the election?” Shumski wrote to Schrader.
Problems like this occur periodically, particularly after redistricting, Schrader wrote. After the 2010 census, the house districts were redrawn in 2012.
The city annually conducts audits of ward and district designations, Schrader said. The last audit happened in June 2013. An audit has not been performed this year due to pending city redistricting to be done in November, Schrader wrote.
