LEXINGTON, Ky. — A judge is expected to determine how to handle a ballot mix up in two Fayette County precincts where some residents casted votes for the wrong person, or were unable to vote for their preferred candidate at all in Fayette County’s District 4 urban council race.

“The e-pollbooks were programmed by location and not by individual precinct, so there was a small chance when voting at a location with multiple precincts that the voter might get a ballot for a different precinct housed at that same location,” Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins Jr. said soon after the error was corrected. “We caught that early on, and fixed it. There should be a negligible impact.” 

Blevins said Lansdowne Elementary School, which is the polling place for Leawood, in the third precinct, and Cedar Run, in the fourth precinct, inadvertently swapped ballots and 71 voters voted for candidates in the wrong precinct for about four hours.

While Blevins expected a negligible impact, the race between the second- and third-place candidates was affected. With the top two vote-getters earning a spot on the ballot in November, Brenda Monarrez came in first with 1,121 votes, but the second- and third-place candidates, Barry Saturday and J. “Brack” Marquette, were separated by just 34 votes.

“It would be a nonissue as long as the race was decided by more than 71 votes. If it was decided by 200, or something, we’d know that the mistake had no material effect on the electrical in that particular race,” Blevins said. “However, it didn’t come out that way. This means that we’re going to have to initiate a recount.”

Blevins urged reporters to consider that a recount will not help the situation because people didn’t get to vote for the fourth district race as they were supposed to and other people voted in races they weren’t supposed to. 

“A recount will not fix that,” he said. “What a judge is going to decide is what we do about that. That one’s out of my hands.” 

With the ultimate outcome in the hands of a circuit court judge, Blevins said he still plans to file an action under Kentucky Revised Statute 120.017, which allows for a recount based on administrative or clerical errors. According to the statute, an action filed in the Circuit Court of competent jurisdiction shall be heard summarily and without delay. The court may determine if the recount is satisfactory. 

“Beyond filing the action, I’m not sure exactly how this is going to play out,” Blevins said. “This has obviously never happened in my life, so it’s new for me as well. But I plan to get an attorney and file as soon as we can and we all move on with life.” 

Blevins said he thinks there are two potential scenarios.

“We either say, 'You lost, sorry,' or they put all three of them on the ballot in the fall instead of just two,” he said.

Marquette said he looks forward to having his opinion about the mixup heard in court and will agree with the judge’s opinion no matter the outcome.

“Whatever the judge decides will be acceptable to me,” he said. “I think that all of the circumstances need to be explored of exactly what happened. Putting both of us on the ballot in November is fair, but I am not advocating for that. I fully support the clerk’s decision to file an action because that’s fair. There’s really no other way to handle it.”

Saturday did not respond to a request for comment.