Registrar Clears Up the “FALSE” Envelope Mystery
Relax. Your mail ballot isn’t rigged because it says “FALSE” on it.
That’s the bottom line on the latest election scare making the rounds in Washoe County.
On Tuesday, Sharron Angle’s Our Voice for America PAC sent out an email blast featuring a piece from the Election Integrity Project Nevada.
It said voters in Reno’s North Valleys found the word “FALSE” printed under the barcode on their mail ballot return envelopes.
One unidentified voter quoted in the email asked about “Republican mail-in voter addresses” getting the FALSE label. She said it “seems very fishy.”
The email then piled on a long list of ominous questions. Was it a clerical error “or a more sinister problem?”
So I did something radical. I actually called the Registrar’s office and asked.
Here’s the full statement I got back from George Guthrie, the Washoe County Registrar of Voters’ public information officer:
“The inclusion of the word ‘FALSE’ on mail ballot return envelopes resulted from a printing error that affected approximately 32,000 envelopes in the initial production batch prepared by our ballot printing vendor. The affected envelopes were not limited to voters of any particular political party.
“For voters required to provide additional identification pursuant to NRS 293.269915, their return envelopes were intended to display ‘TRUE’ in the ‘ID Required’ field. For voters not requiring additional identification, no designation was intended to appear, but the printing error caused ‘FALSE’ to be printed on their envelopes.
“The error was promptly identified and corrected in subsequent batches and did not affect voter registration records, identification requirements, the validity of the ballots or voters’ ability to cast their ballots. We are working with our printing vendor to prevent similar errors in future elections.”
In other words, it’s a printing glitch. Nothing more.
And frankly, anyone who’s ever done a mail merge will recognize it instantly.
The envelope has a field labeled “ID Required.” It’s a yes-or-no question. Computers often store yes-or-no answers as TRUE or FALSE.
Voters who need extra ID were supposed to get TRUE. Everyone else was supposed to get a blank. Instead, the printer spit out the computer’s raw answer. FALSE.
Translation: “No, this voter doesn’t need extra ID.”
That’s it. That’s the whole conspiracy.
Notice something else.
The Registrar’s staff told EIPNv basically the same thing on all three phone calls. FALSE meant no extra ID was needed.
The email treats those matching answers as suspicious. They’re not. They match because they’re true.
Even the email’s own legal citations back this up.
It correctly notes Nevada only requires extra ID from certain voters. Mainly folks who registered remotely and haven’t voted in a Nevada federal election before.
So an “ID Required” flag on the envelope is exactly what you’d expect to see.
What about the “Republican” angle?
The county says the error hit voters of every party. And that makes sense. The flag is about ID status, not party. A printer doesn’t know if you’re an R or a D.
Here’s what really bugs me: The email asks how many voters won’t vote because it all seems “fishy.”
Good question. The answer?
More of them. Now that a fundraising email told them it’s fishy.
That’s the real damage. If conservative voters sit on their ballots over a printer hiccup, Democrats win. Period.
One more thing. The email says Jimmy Carter made his famous absentee ballot warning “16 years ago.” The Carter-Baker Commission report came out in 2005. That’s 21 years ago.
Small thing? Sure. But when you’re accusing election officials of sloppiness, you’d better get your own facts right.
None of this means we stop watching. I’m all for voter ID. I’m voting Yes on Question 7. And mail ballots deserve a hard look.
But credibility is the only weapon election integrity folks have.
Every false alarm makes it easier for the other side to wave off the real problems and makes it harder on responsible election integrity operations like Citizen Outreach’s “Pigpen Project” to work with election officials.
So if your envelope says FALSE, don’t panic. Fill out your ballot. Sign it. Send it back.
It counts just like everyone else’s.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology may have been used in the research, writing, or production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
