Officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, were forced to replace over 18,000 mail-in ballots after a printing error incorrectly restricted the number of candidates voters were allowed to select.Postal officials helped the southern Pennsylvania county intercept about 15,000 of the affected ballots.The Lancaster County elections board plans to ‘set aside’ any erroneous ballots that are returned.

Elections officials in a central Pennsylvania county were scrambling on Monday to fix an error on more than 18,000 mail-in ballots for the spring primary, when voters will elect judges for the state Supreme Court and other positions.

Late last week someone noticed that the ballot for Superior Court instructed Republican and Democratic primary voters to pick only one judicial candidate to nominate from their party, when in fact voters could pick two, according to Lancaster County’s elections board. There are two vacancies to fill on the mid-level appeals court.

By early Monday afternoon, postal officials had helped Lancaster, which is about 71 miles west of Philadelphia, intercept and safely secure over 15,000 of the affected ballots, officials said.

The problem comes as voters are just receiving mail-in ballots for the primary, which also includes a vacancy on the state Supreme Court.

Voters will receive replacements with corrected wording and a sheet of instructions. Those who received an erroneous ballot were told to throw it out and wait for a replacement. Ballots from those who fill out and return erroneous versions will be ‘set aside’ by the elections board, the county said.

The deadline to return mail-in ballots is May 16.

Pennsylvania is a closely divided swing state that is expected to be a major battleground in next year’s presidential contest. Lancaster is a Republican-majority area with a large farm economy and a growing suburban population. More than 220,000 Lancaster residents voted in the November gubernatorial election.

Lancaster County also had a printing problem with primary ballots a year ago, when a vendor mailed ballots with the wrong ID code, preventing scanning machines from reading them. About one-third of the 21,000-plus ballots affected last year were able to be properly scanned. The votes had to be painstakingly transferred to fresh ballots.

Lancaster also faced a ballot printing error in 2021, when a large number of primary mail-in ballots had to be counted by hand, delaying final results. In that case, the Lancaster County Board of Elections said some 14,000 multi-sheet ballots had been printed in the wrong order.

The Republican supermajority in West Virginia’s House of Delegates became more lopsided Monday after Del. Elliott Pritt switched from the Democratic Party, the state’s GOP leader said.

Pritt, a teacher, is in his first term after defeating a Republican incumbent in the 2022 election.

‘I want to welcome Delegate Elliott Pritt to the Republican Party,’ West Virginia Republican Party chairwoman Elgine McArdle said in a statement. ‘Like so many West Virginians, Delegate Pritt has recognized that the Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party that our parents grew up with.’

The move gives the GOP 89 members in the House, while the Democrats’ ranks dwindled to 11. Pritt’s decision was already accounted for by late morning on the West Virginia Legislature’s official House roster.

Pritt had been the last Democrat in the House in the state’s southern coalfields.

The 34-member state Senate also has a GOP supermajority with 31 Republicans and three Democrats.

The move continues a Republican wave in the state that started a decade ago. After the 2014 election, the GOP took control of the state Senate and House from Democrats for the first time in more than eight decades.

Buoyed by criticism of former two-term President Barack Obama’s energy policies in coal-rich West Virginia, registered Democrats in 2014 fell below 50% for the first time since 1932. There are now about 456,000 registered Republicans, or 39.6% of all registered voters in West Virginia, according to the secretary of state’s office. That compares with about 372,000 registered Democrats, or 32.3%.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is the only Democrat to currently hold statewide office.

The Biden administration is linking lower numbers of migrant encounters at the southern border in March compared to the same time last year to its ongoing efforts to discourage illegal entry by expanding legal pathways – as the Department of Homeland Security prepares for the end of Title 42 next month.

There were 191,899 encounters along the southern border in March, down 14% from 222,574 in March 2022, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Monday. It marks a 23% increase from the 156,138 encounters seen in February, although increases in encounters are typical as the spring and summer months arrive. Over two-thirds (69%) of all encounters were of single adults. 

Specifically, Border Patrol encounters of migrants along the southwest border entering illegally between ports of entry – 162,317 in March 2023 – are down 23% from March 2022 (211,181) and 4% from March 2021 (169,216). An administration official also noted that the increase in Border Patrol encounters between February and March is lower (25%) than the prior two years (33% and 73% for 2022 and 2021.) 

The administration has pointed to measures introduced in January that expanded Title 42 expulsions to include Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians – four nationalities whose encounters had spiked in the prior months. The measures, which were followed by a sharp drop in encounters from a record high in December, also included a humanitarian parole program that allows for up to 30,000 of those nationalities to fly into the U.S. each month if they have not entered illegally and meet certain other criteria including background checks and having a sponsor. In March, 27,783 migrants of those four nationalities were paroled into the U.S.

Numbers remained relatively low through January and February compared to recent years, and while they have increased in March overall, the administration believes those measures are having an impact.

‘The January border enforcement measures continue to hold strong even against the typical migration patterns seen as we enter the warmer months,’ the administration official told Fox News Digital. ‘This month’s encounters are down 23% from last year, and the month-over-month change is the lowest seasonal increase seen in two years.’

Additionally, average encounters of the four nationalities are down from a 7-day average of 1,231 in early January to 339 at the end of March. 

While numbers in 2023 have so far been approximately the same or lower than 2022, it is unclear if that will change once the Title 42 public health order ends on May 11. The order, instituted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been used by both the Trump and Biden administrations to quickly expel hundreds of thousands of migrants at the border and has become a key tool in the ongoing migrant crisis now into its third year. In March, 87,662 (46%) of encounters ended in a Title 42 expulsion. 

The order will end along with the COVID-19 public health emergency and officials are concerned about a potentially massive surge at the border once the order drops as migrants believe they have a greater chance of being released into the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have pushed back against what they say is misinformation being spread by smugglers.

‘CBP will continue to enforce our immigration laws and ramp up efforts to combat smuggler misinformation as we prepare to return to expedited removal proceedings under Title 8 authorities, which carry stricter consequences like a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful entry,’ acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement on Monday.

The administration has taken a number of actions to tackle any such surge, including a multi-faceted plan which includes cooperation with NGOs and international partners as well as a surge in resources to the border.

More recently, the administration announced a proposed rule that would make migrants ineligible for asylum if they have crossed into the U.S. illegally and have failed to claim asylum in a country through which they previously traveled.

In anticipation of the order dropping, the administration has also temporarily paused an asylum reform that would allow asylum officers to adjudicate asylum claims at the border within months. It has also launched a pilot program to have migrants hold their ‘credible fear’ interviews while still in CBP custody.

Those moves have seen pushback from immigration rights activists, who claim such measures interfere with the right of migrants to claim asylum in the U.S. Meanwhile, the administration is also facing pressure from Republicans – who have sought to tie the ongoing crisis to the reversal of Trump-era policies by the Biden administration. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has faced a number of grillings on the Hill from Republicans, and will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday.

The administration has taken aim at Republicans for failing to approve funding requests for border readiness, while also calling on Congress to fix what it says is a ‘broken’ immigration system.

New York lawmakers passed a three-day budget extension Monday to ensure state operations continue undisrupted as negotiations over the spending plan continue.

The budget was originally due April 1. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers missed that deadline as they tried to reach agreement on changes to the state’s bail law, a housing plan and other policy issues the governor had included in her budget proposal.

A key sticking point has been Hochul’s proposed changes that would give judges more discretion on setting bail for violent felonies. Liberal lawmakers have resisted further changes to the state’s bail law.

This was the third temporary budget extension approved by state lawmakers. Some state lawmakers expressed frustration at the holdup on a final budget.

‘This is the third (extender), and it’s happening despite the fact that one party is controlling our state government,’ said Republican state Assemblymember Edward P. Ra during the floor vote.

He voted in favor of an extender.

Lawmakers must pass another extender Thursday if a state budget isn’t finalized by then, New York City lawmaker Helene Weinstein said during floor deliberations.

Lawmakers in North Dakota’s House passed a bill Monday that would criminalize abortions after six weeks of gestation — even in cases of rape or incest, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

The bill still requires approval from the Senate and governor to become law.

Opponents of the bill said six weeks is too early to ban abortions because many women don’t know they are pregnant by that time. Supporters of the bill said passing it would further the state’s tradition of protecting all life, including the unborn.

Republican Rep. Dan Ruby, of Minot, said in support of the bill on the House floor, ‘We have a chance to clean up language in our law, make some improvements to it, adjust to it due to the nature of what we did before the overturning of Roe v. Wade to what is being done now.’

Democratic Rep. Gretchen Dobervich, of Fargo, opposed the bill. The House panel had rejected her amendment to change the six weeks to 12 weeks for ‘a woman who has been the victim of sexual violence in which a pregnancy results.’

Last month, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that a state abortion ban will remain blocked while a lawsuit over its constitutionality proceeds.

‘We’re going to send another message to the North Dakota Supreme Court. This is what this Legislature wants. We want pro-life in North Dakota,’ House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, a Republican of Dickinson, said Monday on the House floor in support of the bill.

The bill passed with a 76-14 vote, largely on party lines but with a few exceptions.

Democratic Rep. Alisa Mitskog, of Wahpeton, was the only person in her party to vote in favor of the bill. And three Republicans voted against it. They were Rep. Eric Murphy of Grand Forks, Rep. Shannon Roers Jones of Fargo and Rep. Steve Swiontek of Fargo.