News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena Clerk Anna Soik stuffs an absentee ballot into an envelope so it can be sent out in the mail. Some absentee voters may have to wait a few extra days to get their ballots in the mail because of an ordering snafu.

ALPENA — Some voters in Alpena may have to wait a bit longer than normal for their absentee ballots to arrive in the mail because the city didn’t receive enough ballots to cover absentee voting.

A quirk in the city’s ballot order with its vendors led to few ballots being delivered to City Hall, but Alpena Clerk Anna Soik says the additional ballots will ship from the vendor on Friday and city staff will stuff them into envelopes and get them in the mail soon after.

Soik said she placed an order for folded ballots, which take less time to put into envelopes and send out, and unfolded ballots, for people who stop by her office to vote absentee. She said when the first shipment arrived, it included the folded ballots but none that were unfolded.

“I ordered just enough folded ballots to cover our permanent absentee list and our permanent ballot list, and I figured if I was a little short I could use some of the unfolded ones and fold them on my own,” she said. “I later learned that they were only sending us folded and not the combination of folded and unfolded, and I knew we weren’t going to have enough.”

Soik said she reached out to the Michigan Bureau of Elections and told them what was happening and it advised her to hold back some ballots for people who will vote in person via absentee and to send out the rest to people who requested absentee ballots through the mail.

Soik said the ballot shortage was just a transaction that had difficulties and won’t impact absentee voting or the totals of the election after voting ends at 8 p.m. on Nov. 5. She said all of the information on the ballots is correct, the tabulators have been tested, and everything will be back to normal after the additional ballots arrive and are mailed to the people who requested them.

Absentee voting began on Sept. 26, and some people are starting to receive their ballots in the mail. People can also vote in person at the clerk’s office.

Soik said so far, absentee voting is lagging a little from what she expected. She said only a few absentee ballots have been returned to City Hall and in-person voting has been very slow.

“It has been very slow,” Soik said. “I’m not quite sure why. It’s very quiet and I’m really surprised. I was kind of panicking about what we would do if we didn’t have enough ballots, but it is super slow.”

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.