diff --git a/helios/models.py b/helios/models.py
index acb73bae82d67514d8751e8d501ba00159241056..c485a700492aab8fbd8460dc6e6a4a8c480df686 100644
--- a/helios/models.py
+++ b/helios/models.py
@@ -753,7 +753,7 @@ class VoterFile(models.Model):
       # we do this in a simple way: replace all \r with \n
       # then, replace all double \n with single \n
       # this should leave us with only \n
-      content = content.replace(b'\r',b'\n').replace(b'\n\n',b'\n')
+      content = content.replace(b'\r',b'\n').replace(b'\n\n',b'\n').decode("utf-8-sig").encode("utf-8")
 
       close = False
       voter_stream = io.BytesIO(content)