06/02/2026
Duplicate ballots can sound alarming, but election experts say safeguards are in place to prevent them from leading to double voting, Alexander Shur reports for Votebeat.
Ahead of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election in April, Green Bay election officials accidentally sent duplicate ballots to 150 voters, sparking an administrative complaint and online conspiracy theories.
A similar issue occurred this year in Maryland, where some voters initially received primary ballots for the wrong party. Election officials issued corrected ballots and voided the originals. Despite that, President Donald Trump falsely suggested voters could cast two ballots.
Election experts say that’s not how the system works.
“Once any ballot is received and accepted, it locks down that voter’s record, so that a second ballot could not be accepted for that same voter,” said Tammy Patrick of the National Association of Election Officials.
Experts say unique barcodes, ballot tracking systems and established procedures help ensure accidental duplicate ballots aren’t counted twice. They also note that double voting is a crime, and research has found actual double voting to be extremely rare.
As election security expert David Levine put it, officials generally know how to void or separate mistaken ballots so they won’t be counted — making these incidents “largely much ado about nothing.”
Despite President Donald Trump suggesting otherwise, election officials have procedures in place to make sure duplicate ballots are not counted.
