New touch-screen voting machines being used in this month's primary election listed candidates from 2018 when voters selected Spanish as their preferred language, according to elections officials. 

As WPRI first reported, the mistake affected voters who used ExpressVote devices, which are being used this year for the first time. The machines are designed to allow people with disabilities to mark their ballots without assistance, but all voters have been encouraged to use them. 

Up to 55 voters in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket may have been shown an incorrect list of candidates before the problem was identified, according to elections officials. 

Election Systems & Software, the vendor that supplies the machines, issued an apology on Friday and said that the company "takes responsibility for the human error in coding." 

It's unclear why the error was not detected by local officials before early voting began on Aug. 24.

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, who appears on the ballot as a Democratic candidate for governor, said in a statement Friday that she was "appalled that the Board of Elections failed to identify these errors during its statutorily mandated logic and accuracy testing process." 

A Providence voter noticed the problem on Tuesday afternoon and alerted poll workers, according to Theresa Agonia, a spokeswoman for Mayor Jorge Elorza's office.

"Providence poll workers immediately turned off the ExpressVote machine and the voter was able to vote via a paper ballot," Agonia said in an email. "Immediately following, the Providence Board of Canvassers administrator notified the state Board of Elections."

The state Board of Elections learned about the problem on Wednesday, and notified ES&S, which corrected the error "within hours," Executive Director Robert Rapoza said in a statement. 

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In a letter to the Board of Elections on Thursday, Gorbea said the information her office had provided to ES&S was correct.

However, ES&S "incorrectly uploaded a 2018 file for the impacted races instead of the correct 2022 file that the Department of State’s Elections Division provided them," she said.

Under state law, the secretary of state's office is responsible for certain aspects of elections, while others fall under the jurisdiction of the Board of Elections. 

The board "maintains custody and control" of the ExpressVote machines and should "conduct a thorough, independent audit of this issue so this egregious mistake never occurs again," Gorbea said in her Thursday letter. 

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, who is term-limited and does not appear on the ballot this year, sent a letter to both Gorbea and the Board of Elections on Friday, saying that it was "extremely disappointing and simply unacceptable that neither the Secretary of State’s Office nor the Board of Elections had a system in place to prevent this from occurring."

"Regardless of whether a third party is responsible for the error, allowing an incorrect, outdated ballot during a major election year with no checks and balances is unacceptable and points to a gap in the state’s quality control process," Elorza wrote.

Gorbea responded on Friday, saying that Elorza's letter contained some "misguided statements."

"Per your profession as an attorney and as the Mayor of Providence, I was surprised to see that you failed to review R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-19-3(b)(1)-(2). This statute clearly articulates the role of logic, accuracy, and programming testing as a responsibility of the Board of Elections," she wrote in a letter to Elorza. "I trust that the above information was missed in error of judgment of the facts and not due to your endorsement of one of my opponents in the Democratic gubernatorial primary." (Elorza has endorsed Helena Buonanno Foulkes for governor.)

Two of Gorbea's rivals in the Democratic primary say she should take responsibility for the fiasco, while Gov. Dan McKee's campaign manager Brexton Isaacs called the ballot SNAFU "deeply troubling."

"it’s absolutely critical that voters have confidence in their election systems. The issue that was brought to light [Friday] is deeply troubling and it's imperative that we understand how it happened so that we can protect the integrity of the ballot box," Isaacs said.

"As the chief elections officer for the State of Rhode Island, Secretary Nellie Gorbea is responsible for ensuring that elections are fair, fast, and accurate," Foulkes said in a statement. "The buck should stop with her."

Foulkes also questioned why voters hadn't been told about the problem sooner. 

"It is also deeply troubling that Secretary Gorbea learned about this on Wednesday and the public was not notified until late Friday afternoon," she said. "This lack of transparency undermines our election system and disenfranchises voters from having trust in our democratic process." 

Gorbea’s letter to the Board of Elections states that her office – specifically, Elections Director Rob Rock – was notified about the problem at about 2:30 pm on Wednesday.

Gorbea was informed about the problem on Thursday, according to her campaign. The mix-up first became public knowledge on Friday afternoon, when WPRI published its story. 

Another rival Democrat, Matt Brown, said that Gorbea was trying to "dodge responsibility" by blaming the vendor that had been chosen by her office.

“When I was secretary of state I advocated for and passed legislation to make the secretary of state the chief elections officer so the people of Rhode Island would know who has ultimate accountability for the integrity of our elections," Brown said in a statement. "Nellie Gorbea is shirking that responsibility. Secretary Gorbea should have systems in place to ensure ballots are accurate and our voting system is reliable."

Gorbea's campaign responded: "The facts do not change no matter how many desperate politicians choose to mislead voters.... The secretary was informed by her staff on Thursday, immediately sent a letter to the Board of Elections calling for transparency, and went to WPRI that same day to ensure that Rhode Islanders knew that there had been a problem with the ExpressVote machines."

Additionally, the Gorbea campaign said in a statement issued by spokeswoman Molly O’Brien, Rhode Island law "places the responsibility for the logic and accuracy testing squarely under the jurisdiction of the Board of Elections – an independent agency that oversees voting in Rhode Island. The Board of Elections should have caught the ExpressVote Spanish screen error made by the vendor."

"Secretary Gorbea has acted swiftly to demand that the Board of Elections explain how this inexcusable mistake happened and is looking into any other legal and financial recourse in regards to the vendor contract," the campaign said. 

ExpressVote machines have large touch screens and are designed so that they can be used by voters with a range of disabilities. They do not tabulate votes. Instead, they print out a ballot card marked with the voter’s selections.

That card is then treated like a traditional paper ballot and tabulated using the standard DS-200 voting machines, according to the secretary of state's office and Board of Elections. 

In other words, the ExpressVote machines do not count votes and are essentially a high-tech way for voters to mark their ballots.

This is not the first time that special assistive machines have been available for voters who might have a hard time marking a traditional ballot with a pen. But this year the new ExpressVote machines replaced older Automark machines that were used in past elections. 

According to Johnathan Berard, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, the Automark machines had outlived their useful life and were prone to break down, and their age made it hard to find replacement parts. 

The Board of Elections asked the secretary of state's office to look into procuring new accessible ballot marking machines after the 2020 election, Berard said. They convened a joint Voting Accessibility Task Force, and, ultimately, "ES&S was selected as the vendor after a RFP process that included the Board of Elections."

According to the secretary of state's office, the mix-up affected four cities – Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket – where the Voting Rights Act requires that Spanish-language ballots be provided to voters.

When voters in those cities used the ExpressVote machines and selected the option for Spanish, the touch screens displayed the names of some candidates who had run in 2018 instead of the candidates who are running in 2022. 

According to the Board of Elections, the screens incorrectly listed the Democratic candidates for mayor of Providence and lieutenant governor, and the Republican candidates for Congressional District 1 and general treasurer.

ES&S determined that 55 people in the four affected cities used the ExpressVote machines to vote before the problem was identified, according to the secretary of state's office. The company said that it was impossible to determine how many of those voters chose the Spanish-language option, but that it was unlikely that all 55 had.

The Board of Elections' statement said that printed ballot cards "accurately reflected the names of candidates within the affected contests, which voters could confirm prior to inserting the ballot card into the DS-200 machine for tabulation."

The Board of Elections is working closely with the vendor and the secretary of state's office "to understand how this error occurred, and to ensure that it never happens again," Rapoza's statement said. 

As of Friday, it was unclear if any ballots would be disqualified. The secretary of state's office says that question is up to the Board of Elections. 

Elorza, in his letter, called on the Board of Elections and secretary of state to "meet immediately to develop a plan for how the tainted ballots are going to be handled" in addition to hiring an independent auditor to review what went wrong.

"To date, it is unclear how many Providence and statewide voters’ ballots were tainted and it is unclear how those ballots will be treated, particularly if there is a close election result," he said. "We need to ensure there are no gaps or errors when conducting our elections process, and our voters demand better."

Gorbea, in her response, said that she was "concerned about the language" that Elorza was using.

"This issue does not pertain to 'tainted ballots,'" she wrote. "The error involves the coding of the ExpressVote screen that voters use to select their candidates."

She urged Elorza to "put politics aside, and communicate with clear and accurate statements which will ensure voters maintain faith in the integrity of our elections."

With reports from Katherine Gregg