Carbon County’s election office received unexpected mail last week.

During the monthly county election board meeting, Jennifer Ketchledge, elections director, announced that her office received a returned official ballot that was dated Oct. 18, 2024, last Wednesday.

“I’m just letting you know that when people get upset that they aren’t getting their ballots, it’s not our fault,” she said. “It was sent.”

This isn’t the first returned ballot from the last general election the county that was an issue.

In November, the county reported that Carbon County was one of eight counties that received completed ballots from voters in other counties when the mail was delivered. Carbon had received four of these incorrect ballots, from voters in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Lehigh counties.

After the election, the board said that questions still remained on what to do with them as the state had not provided guidance to counties about those ballots.

At that time, county solicitor Robert Frycklund said that the state never made it clear on what the counties should do with those ballots.