Sending notices to absentee voters and preparing signs for in-person voting should be a secondary plan, however. Election officials should make every effort to reprint new ballots that correctly list the candidates actually running for office. But there is an obvious solution that can be used to adequately inform voters even if that is not possible.

Any refusal by election officials to, at a minimum, prepare such notices will be a violation of their duty as public officials to fairly and honestly administer the upcoming election. Given the ease of this solution, it will be hard to imagine any refusal to implement it that is based on anything other than election officials engaging in partisan misbehavior that is intended to misinform voters and manipulate the results of the presidential election.

Election officials who engage in that type of misconduct are betraying the public trust and should not be in office.