Late ballots: No-fault error?

It’s a shame that, before the dust has even settled on last year’s absentee voter difficulty, authorities have just discovered that ballots did not go out in time in Greene and Nelson counties.
Last year, Virginia failed to mail some 2,100 absentee ballots in time to be returned for the presidential election. The state has been ordered to count those ballots that, as a result, were late getting back to the state, even though the election is well over.
This case was especially egregious because it was military personnel who had failed to receive ballots. While serving their country, they were denied the right to have their votes matter in the national election.

That makes the current case especially sensitive.
However, the two registrars involved have given good explanations for the turn of events.
The Nelson County registrar says she updated her name in the state system back in March, but only recently learned that the update was not completed. E-mailed requests for ballots, meanwhile, were going to an old address.
In Greene County, the registrar says the death of the electoral board chairman’s mother caused a delay in processing requests. The duty could have been delegated, but that didn’t occur either.

In one case, the source of the problem apparently was a state computer glitch; in another, it seems to have been due to a sad family emergency. How can one fault an official for failing to find a replacement amid the pressure of dealing with a death and funeral?
That doesn’t help the people who didn’t get absentee ballots, of course — although state officials say that even if ballots were sent out a day or two late, they still could be completed, mailed and received by 7 p.m. Tuesday. Nelson County ballots were mailed no later than Oct. 1, and Greene ballots no later than Sept. 21, missing the Sept. 18 deadline by less than a week. However, some ballots — especially those for many military personnel — have to travel overseas and back.

We’re not trying to usurp the prerogative of the Virginia State Board of Elections, as it investigates late ballot mailings in Greene, Nelson and 14 other localities. The board may reach other conclusions.
But the cases do remind us that government failings may derive from something other than ineptitude we so often ascribe to bureaucracies large and small.
Sometimes they are due to the simple human snafus and emergencies that affect us all.