Printing mishap City sends out incorrect ballot paper envelopes

The city of Winterthur packs voting documents for over 30 municipalities. The city's printing center made a small mistake.

The printing center of the city of Winterthur made a mistake: When sending out the voting documents for November 24, envelopes with the logo of the city of Winterthur were sent out by mistake instead of neutral envelopes.

A "good handful" of municipalities were affected, says Christian Manser, Head of IT Services of the City of Winterthur to the "Landbote". However, Manser does not want to reveal how many municipalities are affected.

According to a report in the "Glatttaler", Fällanden, Grüningen and Fehraltorf have informed their voters about the error. Egg, Männedorf, Regensdorf and Thalwil are also affected.

Incorrect envelopes were inserted

"The error occurred when operating the packaging machine," says Manser. Instead of neutral ballot paper envelopes, envelopes with the logo of the city of Winterthur were inserted. This happened despite the "six-eyes principle", as Manser explains to the newspaper, which means that three people make sure that everything is done according to the regulations and also check that this is the case.

In a "zero-tolerance business" such as voting, such an error should not occur, according to Manser. To his knowledge, the same mistake has never happened to the employees of the printing center. Measures will be taken to ensure that there are no further mix-ups.

The municipal administrations concerned were informed immediately. The Statistical Office of the Canton of Zurich, which decides on the measures to be taken in the event of errors in connection with votes, was also informed immediately. Voters can use the envelope as usual.