It has just been just over a year since MoreThanTheCurve.com reported how Montgomery County inconsistently promoted the opportunity for someone to act as a designated agent and how and where they could submit a ballot for someone who has a disability or illness that prevents them from casting their ballot themselves.

On April 25th of this year, the county sent out a press release announcing the location of drop boxes for the upcoming primary election in May. We read through the release and we’re surprised to see that the release stated that designated agents could only submit ballots at the Voter Services office in Norristown. This would be a significant change as in the past a designated agent could drop ballots at a mailbox or at a drop box.

From the press release:

We asked the county’s communications staff if their press release was correct in regards to the designated agents and drop boxes and received the following response:

The designated agent form (attached) specifies that the completed ballot can be returned by mail or in-person. We will continue to accept ballots with Designated Agent forms at our drop boxes.

We then responded with the text in question from the press release (highlighted above) and questioned the response from the county. Five-and-a-half hours later the county issued a correction to the earlier press release. From our inbox:

From the corrected version of the press release:

As you can see, the line about how designated agents has changed to state that they can utilize the postal service or drop boxes.

However, that wasn’t the only mistake. There were three additional mistakes involving dates and what needed to be returned with a mail-in ballot. We aren’t going to repeat those so they are not out on the Internet to find and read.

You can find the corrected press release here.