Mistake Discovered on Early Voting Smithville Election Ballot

A mistake on the early voting ballot in the Smithville Municipal Election, in which the name Jerry Hutchins, Jr. was listed as a candidate for alderman, has now been corrected.
The ballot should have listed the name Jerry Hutchins, Sr. and not Jerry Hutchins, Jr.
In a prepared statement, Administrator of Elections Dennis Stanley says “It was brought to my attention Thursday evening (May 28th) that there was a typographical error on the early voting ballot for the Smithville Municipal Election. The error was that incumbent alderman candidate Jerry Hutchins, Sr. was listed as Jerry Hutchins, Jr.”
“I, along with local election commission officials and state officials, immediately began to take steps to correct the problem. Before early voting closed Friday (May 29th), the error was corrected, and the ballot on the two early voting machines now correctly reads “Jerry Hutchins, Sr.”.
“Voters should rest assured that any votes cast for Jerry Hutchins, Jr. before the ballot was corrected will be counted for Jerry Hutchins, Sr.”
“As indicated, I was in constant contact with the proper state officials who guided me in correcting the error, consequently, voting (and the entire election) will continue as planned.”
State Election Coordinator Mark Goins told WJLE Friday says this was simply a minor typographical error and there is no reason to void the election because of it. “This is not the first time this has happened (in Tennessee). It occurs every election cycle where there is some type of mistake dealing with a name being misspelled or whatever. Occasionally this happens. But I think in this case, it’s the intent of the voter. They’re voting for who they think they are voting for. It’s a minor typo as opposed to where somebody might be running as say “Mark Shelby” and their name is really “Mark Smith”. That would be a huge issue. If the courts were to look at it, they would look at the intent of the voter and I would certainly think that the voter would be intending to vote for the person running for office. This guy (Jerry Hutchins, Sr.) is already on the city council and I don’t think the voter is going to be confused.”
The entire slate of candidates on the ballot are as follows:
Gary Durham, Jerry Hutchins, Sr., Shawn Jacobs, Aaron Meeks, Tonya Sullivan, Willie Thomas, W.J. (Dub) White, and Todd Van Dyne.