Did a printer error in Nassau County, N.Y., turn every registered voter Democratic?

Ahead of a June 27 primary election for local offices, voters in Nassau County on New York’s Long Island received cards in their mailbox containing their voter registration information and their polling place. 

Because of a printing error, about half a million voters who were registered Republicans or had other party affiliations were identified as Democrats on the cards.

This led some Twitter users to say this meant that voting officials had turned hundreds of thousands of Nassau County Republicans into Democrats.

The printing mistake, by vendor Phoenix Graphics, was real, but it did not change anyone’s partisan affiliation.

The office of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told PolitiFact New York that Nassau County was immediately notified about the error, worked to fix it and investigated how the mistake happened.

In New York, only registered Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries and only registered Republicans can vote in Republican primaries.

Blakeman’s office said the problem stemmed from human error by the company that printed the cards.

Phoenix Graphics told USA Today in a statement, "The voters’ party affiliation may have been incorrect on the first mailing. However, polling site information is correct. We take responsibility for that. As soon as it was discovered, we moved immediately to remedy the situation. This is an isolated event, but we apologize for our mistake, especially to Nassau County officials, who bear no responsibility for this problem. We have fixed the error and at no cost to taxpayers will deliver corrected voter information cards as soon as possible."

PolitiFact asked the Nassau County Board of Elections to determine whether the mistake meant that any voters had their party registrations changed. 

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The board did not answer our inquiry, but Nassau County Democratic Elections Commissioner Jim Scheuerman told WABC-TV in New York that "all voter information is accurate in our system. This is purely a vendor error that is quickly being rectified."

"This was an error on an outside document that in no way affected registration with the Board of Elections," Scheuerman said, Newsday reported.

The tweets said a printer error in Nassau County turned every registered voter in the county into a Democrat.

A printing error did occur, but the mistake occurred in an unofficial mailing. Voters did not have their party registrations changed.

We rate the statement Mostly False