Mistake allows some FMB voters to submit extra ballot

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla.- A handful of people on Fort Myers Beach were able to vote for a presidential candidate twice when they were accidentally given an extra ballot, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections Office said on Tuesday.

An island voter says he was shocked to find he was given the additional ballot at St. Peter Lutheran Church.

“I just about finished everything and realized there was a third page for the Republican presidential nominees, and I said, ‘I’ve already filled out one of those!” Don Rollins said.

Rollins says he didn’t fill the extra ballot out and alerted the poll workers right away.

“At first I said, well, I’ll have to vote again, and then the woman said ‘no, why don’t we just get rid of this one sheet,’ which was just the presidential nominees on it,” Rollins said.

Lee County’s Supervisor of Elections Office says about 14 voters filled out the extra page.

“The ballots are in the box there’s not anything we can do, we won’t know which ones should be pulled. They will go through the system and be considered over votes,” said Sharon Harrington.

The elections office blames the problem on new poll workers.

“It’s something that we’ll definitely go over in our training process especially our new poll workers that are down there and try to explain to them they were only supposed to be used for a specific group of people,” Harrington said.

Fort Myers Beach residents are voting on 21 referendums Tuesday in addition to voting for a presidential candidate. The confusion arose from poll workers handing out a two-page ballot, with the referendums and presidential candidates, meant for island residents only, as well as a third page with the presidential candidates meant for non-island residents.