Around 9,000 Tooele County voters receive incorrect ballots
Jun 3, 2026, 10:10 AM | Updated: Jun 5, 2026, 2:34 pm
A pile of ballots, ready to be processed, is pictured at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Approximately 9,000 Tooele County voters received the wrong ballots in their mailboxes ahead of the 2026 Primary Election day set for June 23.
The issue was first discovered by a candidate and their family, Tooele County Clerk Tracy Shaw explained to KSL’s Inside Sources on Wednesday.
“When (the candidate) and his family opened the ballot and didn’t see his own name on it, that was an obvious cause for concern for him,” Shaw said. “That was the first that I heard. (I’m) super grateful for several voters reaching out to say, ‘Hey I think there’s a problem.’
From there, reports started coming in from voters who said they received an incorrect ballot. Shaw said some GOP voters received the non partisan ballot, and vice versa.
Shaw said the root of the problem was “a vendor processing issue,” ending with a limited amount of voters being sent an incorrect ballot style. Shaw added that the data provided to the printing vendor was fine.
“Obviously that’s not the expected outcome, but it is what happened and the issue has been identified with our print vendor and corrected,” Shaw said.
According to Shaw, voters who received an incorrect ballot would be sent an email explaining what happened. Every effected voter would also be sent a new ballot with an insert explaining the situation and how to make sure the ballot they have is the correct one.
“With the help of the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, we have been able to mass spoil those (incorrect ballots),” Shaw said. “So I’m painstakingly going over all of that data right now to ensure that the correct ballots were spoiled and that those line up with the ballots that we expect to send out in this new batch of ballots that are being generated.”
Shaw added that those new ballots being created would be paid for by the print vendor.
According to Shaw, the incorrect ballots were deactivated on Wednesday and new ballots were issued to voters. Those new ballots were expected to be mailed out to voters on Monday or sooner if possible.
In the case where someone did vote using those deactivated ballots, Shaw said equipment used during elections should be able to identify the ballot as spoiled and it would be rejected and not counted.
“It’s unfortunate but I’m super grateful that we have solutions in place and lots of partners that are willing to help correct this so that people can have the right ballots,” Shaw said. “And I’m glad we’ve got time as well. I’m glad we send ballots out as early as we do, so that we have plenty of runway to correct these errors to give voters plenty of opportunity to have time to vote accordingly.”
As a reminder, Shaw said mail-in ballots should be in the drop box by 8 p.m. on June 23 in order to be counted.
This story may be updated.
