(ABC 6 News) – Election integrity is in the spotlight after ballots were misprinted in Faribault County, switching the party affiliations for the state’s House District 23A.

According to the Secretary of State Steve Simon, however, these issues happen and his office is always ready to tackled it when it does.

He said the creation of these ballots are the responsibility of the county, so any mistakes come from them and not his office directly, but that doesn’t mean anyone is inherently to blame.

“This was an unfortunate mistake,” Sec. Simon said. “It was a misprint made at the county level. Our office doesn’t play any role in that, that’s something that by state law happens at the county level, but the good news is they’re doing what they can to fix the problem.”

Following the discovery of the issue, ABC 6 was informed that election workers were told not to tell voters there was an issue with the ballot until after they cast their vote.

The Secretary, on the other hand, says that’s not the case.

This and other issues have been pointed out by Representative Peggy Bennett, the incumbent candidate for district 23A, who initially placed the Secretary’s office at fault for the misprints before walking those comments back after learning the county’s hand in the mistake.

According to Rep. Bennett, however, the fact that such a problem could happen is still cause for concern.

“Whenever mistakes like this happen, and they’ve happened elsewhere too now, it really reduces voter confidence in our election system,” she said. “And it’s already pretty low.”

Rep. Bennett’s opponent in District 23A, Joe Staloch, has also been following the proceedings closely.

He said he was first contacted by the Secretary’s office on Saturday, and has been working alongside the office and legal counsel to ensure the issues are addressed.

“We all want this resolved as quickly as possible and we want everyone’s votes to count,” Staloch said.

“Despite the issues, Sec. Simon praised Faribault County for its swift action in catching the mistake and informing his office so they could work on fixing it.

According to the Secretary, the new ballots have already been approved and are expected to be filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court and redistributed to voters very soon.