"We are the printing vendors for the Center for Voter Information, a non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to help members of the Rising American Electorate -- young people, people of color, and unmarried women -- register and vote. In the course of our 10-year association with CVI we have helped to register and mobilize over 5 million people. We are incredibly proud of our work with them.
However, in a recent mailing for CVI in Virginia we made a major error in our printing. We sent voters in eight Virginia jurisdictions a vote-by-mail application with a reply envelope that was addressed to the wrong jurisdiction. This mistake occurred because we incorrectly aligned a spreadsheet that matched the voter with their local election office. (bold is in the original statement)
We did not send the spreadsheet to CVI for review, and our own internal proofing procedures failed to catch the mistake. The error was entirely ours.
We are keenly aware of the seriousness of this mistake. We added to the burden already felt by local election boards and made their jobs significantly harder. Worse, this error created confusion for voters who are trying to exercise their right to vote from home, safely and conveniently. And we violated the trust that CVI places in us as their print vendors.
This is not the level of work that SED and our partner, Quad Graphics, pride ourselves on. We have printed and mailed over 100 million vote-by-mail applications and voter registration applications without error and we are committed to the highest standards of quality control and excellence. In this mailing we fell far short of that goal. We apologize to CVI, to the staff at the affected local boards of election, and to the voters.
We have analyzed the root cause of this error and are taking steps to ensure that nothing like this can happen in future mailings."
