Who got your vote?
Absentee ballotts delivered to the wrong address

These completed absentee ballots for the general election were mistakenly delivered to the Gallup Independent's post office box despite being clearly labeled for the McKinley County Clerk. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — They're not exactly next to each other, PO Box 1268 and PO Box 1210, the former belonging to the McKinley County Clerk, the latter to The Independent. Nonetheless, five completed absentee ballots clearly marked for the clerk ended up in The Independent's box Friday morning.

The United States Postal Service is at a loss to explain what happened. Thelma Malone, the acting post master and officer in charge of the local post office, declined to comment. Albuquerque district spokesman Sam Bolen, meanwhile, said it was the first time he'd heard of a misdelivered absentee ballot in his 26 years with the Postal Service.

"We're very careful. I'm very surprised to hear this," Bolen said.

Even so, Bolen said he would report the mistake to the district's operations manager and that the Postal Service would be conducting an investigation.

"We take this very seriously," he said.

The very nature of the problem makes it difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly how much mail gets delivered to the wrong address. Rick Palochak, the man who directs the county's Elections Bureau, said he he'd never heard of misdelivered absentee ballots, either.

"I can only hope that the person that gets the ballot ... follows the law and doesn't open it, because it's a felony," he said.

Though the last few presidential elections have shown how important each vote can be, absentee voting generally and, specifically, in McKinley County isn't especially popular. In a county with some 35,000 registered voters, Palochak said, the Elections Bureau has mailed out only 714 absentee ballots since Oct. 10. That's just two percent of registered voters.

Even so, Palochak said he'd be contacting the Postal Service about the misdelivered ballots and reporting it to the Secretary of State's Office, which oversees the state's elections.