'This is an issue': Some Virginia voters received duplicate ballots in mail, but officials say all is well

Just weeks before Election Day, at least 1,400 Virginia voters who had requested absentee ballots received duplicates in the mail.

What are the details?

According to the Washington Post, at least 1,000 registered voters in Fairfax County received multiple absentee ballots, while voters in Henrico County and the city of Richmond also received duplicate absentee ballots.

Maurisa Potts told WRC-TV that she was shocked to find four ballots in her mailbox recently, two for her and two for her husband.

"When I got the mail, we got four ballots — two for me, addressed to me, and two addressed to my husband, so for someone who is a first timer doing mail-in I was confused," she said. "With this year, with people are concerned about election fraud and being fair and counting ballots, this is an issue."

Jean Brennan, a voter in Leesburg, told WTTG-TV that she received one ballot in the mail and her husband received two.

"This is what [Trump's] concerned about and I am too and I wanted to bring it to your attention," Brennan told the news station.

Despite the alarming development, officials said there is no reason for concern. Officials in both counties blamed the error on printing issues and record demand for absentee ballots.

More from the Post:

[E]lection officials said safeguards are in place to ensure that only one ballot is counted per voter. Each ballot cast by a Virginia voter is recorded into a state verification system, election officials said. If someone were to try to vote more than once with the same identity, the system would reject the extra ballot as invalid.

What's the background?

With concerns over the spread of coronavirus, this year's election will place a greater emphasis on absentee and mail-in ballots than ever before. Republicans claim the process is ripe for voter fraud, while Democrats say mail-in voting is safe for conducting a national election.

But there have been numerous problems with mail ballots thus far.

For example, as many as 140,000 mismatched ballots were mailed in New York. As TheBlaze reported, voters received ballots containing the wrong name, wrong address — or someone else's ballot altogether.

Meanwhile, over 20% of the mail-in ballots cast during New York City's presidential primary in June were disqualified.

In Georgia, state Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed in August that 1,000 people voted twice during Georgia's primary, casting absentee ballots and voting in person. Although the apparent voter fraud did not change the outcome of any elections there, Raffensperger suggested it proved mail-in voting is not suitable for conducting a fair and safe election.