Who is running for president? In Rensselaer County in upstate New York, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they...
TROY, N.Y. — Who is running for president? In Rensselaer County in upstate New York, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for “Barack Osama.”
The absentee ballots sent to voters in the county identified the two presidential candidates as “Barack Osama” and “John McCain.” In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks.
The typographical terror error was first reported by the Times Union of Albany.
The elections office faxed a statement in which the two commissioners, Democrat Edward McDonough and Republican Larry Bugbee, said they regretted the error but never acknowledged what the error was.
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“It’s human error, it’s very unfortunate, it’s an embarrassment to our office, obviously,” McDonough said in a later phone interview. “We wish we could turn back the clock, but we can’t.”
When they discovered the mistake, officials shredded the remaining “Osama” ballots and mailed correct versions to the roughly 300 people who had received them. McDonough said the “Osama” mistake was made in only one of the 13 ballot versions mailed throughout the county, east of the state capital, Albany.
Voters who received both versions will be allowed to send in either one and have it counted, McDonough said.