diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/CountVectorizer.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/CountVectorizer.scala
index 10dcda2382f4..8e6121bb0d0d 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/CountVectorizer.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/CountVectorizer.scala
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@ private[feature] trait CountVectorizerParams extends Params with HasInputCol wit
   /** Validates and transforms the input schema. */
   protected def validateAndTransformSchema(schema: StructType): StructType = {
     validateParams()
-    SchemaUtils.checkColumnType(schema, $(inputCol), new ArrayType(StringType, true))
+    val typeCandidates = List(new ArrayType(StringType, true), new ArrayType(StringType, false))
+    SchemaUtils.checkColumnTypes(schema, $(inputCol), typeCandidates)
     SchemaUtils.appendColumn(schema, $(outputCol), new VectorUDT)
   }