Election 2020: About 400 Michigan Overseas Ballots Erroneously Omit Mike Pence's Name

Several Michigan military and overseas voters may receive a presidential ballot that does not feature Vice President Mike Pence's name due to a "temporary error." More than 400 ballots downloaded from a state database Tuesday incorrectly named Jeremy Cohen, a Libertarian candidate, as Donald Trump's running mate.

The Michigan Secretary of State's Office said late Tuesday that local clerks downloaded about 400 ballots with the error. These ballots were meant to be mailed or emailed to Michigan residents living abroad under the Military and Overseas Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

"We do not know how many of these ballots were sent to voters, but clerks were instructed to immediately alert voters of the error and send a corrected ballot. Voters who use the incorrect ballots instead of corrected ballots will still have their vote counted."

An image showing a portion of a ballot with the error was shared by Detroit Free Press.

"It was an accidental programmer error, and was fixed within 90 minutes of being identified," Tracy Wimmer, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, told Detroit Free Press.

"If a voter does happen to return the incorrect ballot instead of the correct ballot, it will still count. The clerk will be instructed to duplicate a vote for Trump onto a ballot for Trump/Pence. Since these ballots generated out of (Qualified Voter File) are all duplicated regardless, the procedure would not differ from what would be done with a vote for Trump on the correct ballot," Wimmer said.

Trump has attacked the mail-in voting process, repeatedly tweeting the unsupported claim that the use of mail-in ballots could lead to voter fraud and a rigged election. He backed up his complaints about mail-in ballots with lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Iowa.

Michigan has approximately 7.7 million registered voters, of which more than 3 million are expected to cast absentee ballots in November.