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Genesee County Clerk John Gleason sits at his desk during a press conference Thursday afternoon, Oct. 6, 2016, to talk about faulty ballots sent to many Genesee County absentee voters.

(MLive.com | Molly Young)

GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- The Genesee County clerk's office is scrambling after thousands of ballots were misprinted and will not be automatically read by machines.

"The integrity of the first batch of ballots was not where it needed to be, and we have to reprint many of the ballots," County Clerk John Gleason said Thursday, Oct. 6.

There was a multitude of issues with the first batch of ballots, Gleason said, including smudges, the density of the ink and the ballots not being cut squarely.

The problems were discovered after 22 municipalities sent out a total of 14,000 ballots to absentee voters. Only six municipalities had not sent the ballots out, including Burton, Davison, Fenton Township, Flint and Mundy Township.

"The concern right now is that many people have returned ballots. If you returned a ballot, you are guaranteed a vote. If you don't turn in the second one, we will use the first one," Gleason said. "It's just an awful lot of extra work for municipal clerks."

Gleason says it was a bit of a "crisis" when his office was made aware of the mishap Tuesday, Oct. 4, but the state since sent guidelines on how to handle the situation.

New ballots will be printed and sent out. For those who do not return the second, corrected ballot, their first ballot will be hand-counted election night.

For the new ballots, the county is working with a new printing company - after a decade with the old one, whose name Gleason would not reveal - which promised to have absentee ballots printed by Saturday, and the rest of the 300,000 ballots by next week.

Then, people who received a faulty ballot will be mailed a new ballot with a letter explaining the error.

Even those who do not return the new ballot will still have their votes counted by hand on election night.

"No one should expect early results that night," Gleason said.

And as far as who will pay the estimated $340,000 for new ballots, plus stamps and envelopes it'll take to mail the absentee ballots, for now it's the taxpayers. But Gleason says as far as he's concerned, they shouldn't have to pay for something they can't use.

"I've told (municipal clerks) to keep everything. Don't throw anything away," Gleason said.

As far as possible future lawsuits go, Gleason said: "I don't know how there could not be."