Essex County voters who received bilingual sample ballots didn’t just receive voting instructions in Spanish. They also were given an incorrect telephone number for the Essex County Board of Elections.
The English-only sample ballot doesn’t contain a phone number at all.
The story was reported by the Star-Ledger, which credited Montclair attorney Nancy Erika Smith with discovering the mistake.
Secretario del Condado de Essex Patrick J. McNally told the Ledger the number wasn’t a misprint but was disconnected for unexplained reasons. “Not to minimize this, but it is not a hanging chad,” he said.