TOPEKA - Data entry errors caused by Opti-Scan ballot totals being entered in the wrong column in Shawnee County left out the votes from about 4,400 ballots out of its primary results.

County Elections Commissioner Elizabeth Ensley said Wednesday in a 3:30pm news conference, that workers discovered the problem Wednesday morning. It involved returns from 42 precincts. The undercount did not affect the outcome of any races in the county.

When the accurate figures were tabulated State Treasurer Lynn
Jenkins' lead in the 2nd Congressional District Republican primary
widened.

Ensley said the error involved ballots mailed to military
personnel and American citizens living overseas. The information
from those ballots was entered in the wrong column, preventing the
votes from other ballots, read by optical scanners column, from
being loaded into the county's computer system. Ensley wouldn't say how many workers were involved in the date entry error. She said she took full responsibility for what happened.