Council Orders Probe of Election Night Foul-Ups

Responding to a series of election night foul-ups, including the failure to tally about 13,000 votes that apparently have changed the outcome of a community college board race, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday ordered a probe of the city clerk’s handling of last Tuesday’s balloting.

The council cited “several problems that could and should be avoided,” including reports that the mailing of many sample ballots was delayed, that election night vote counting went slower than expected and that, in at least two instances, council candidates appeared on ballots in the wrong district.

The most embarrassing snafu was the discovery Thursday that 13,374 Burbank-area ballots cast in the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees race had not been included in a report of unofficial vote totals released by City Clerk Elias Martinez’s office. That report, issued early Wednesday morning, indicated that it included returns from all college district precincts.

Bad News for Bronson

For incumbent college trustee Arthur Bronson, a 14-year veteran who had been clinging to a razor-thin victory margin in his fight to avoid a runoff against former Los Angeles school board member Richard Ferraro, the previously uncounted ballots were an unwelcome find.

The new votes pushed Bronson’s vote totals below the 50% mark. Bronson said he now anticipates a runoff.

Martinez accepted some responsibility for the mix-up, but he said “Burbank was to call us” with the vote totals. Burbank’s city election had been consolidated with the election in the community college district, which includes the city.

Officials in the Burbank city clerk’s office said they did not know they were supposed to call and assumed Martinez’s office had obtained the vote totals Tuesday night.

Martinez downplayed the significance of the two-day delay in discovering the error, saying the official vote total has not been completed. About 12,000 absentee ballots citywide still have to be counted.

Mix-Up Called ‘Incredible’

Bronson, on the other hand, found the mix-up “incredible . . . deplorable.”

For Martinez, an appointee of Mayor Tom Bradley, it was the latest episode in a controversial two-year stewardship of the city clerk’s office. A former administrative coordinator for Bradley who began his City Hall career more than 20 years ago as a garage attendant, Martinez was named to the post while the mayor was in the midst of his unsuccessful 1982 bid for governor.

Although Martinez scored highest for the Civil Service position, some accused Bradley of courting Latino voters by announcing the appointment several months before then-City Clerk Rex Layton’s retirement.

Shortly after Martinez took over, he became embroiled in a bitter political struggle between Eastside Councilman Arthur K. Snyder and his challenger, Steve Rodriguez. A recount and lawsuit over ballot counting accompanied the close April, 1983, regular election in which Snyder finally was reelected over Rodriguez by a four-vote margin.

Last year, Martinez’s office was accused of “sheer incompetence or corruption” by Rodriguez during a long-running dispute over whether Snyder recall petition signatures should be counted. Martinez resisted taking steps to certify the recall petitions until Rodriguez won a court order.

Snyder, who recently announced he intends to resign, survived the resulting recall election in August.

In the latest controversy, Bradley quickly came to Martinez’s defense. The mayor said he has complete confidence in the city clerk’s abilities.

According to Bradley’s press office, however, the mayor did ask Martinez to prepare a report detailing what went wrong with the handling of the election and recommending how the problems can be avoided.

Other city officials were more critical of Martinez. Councilwoman Joy Picus said, “His performance has never been outstanding.”

An aide to Westside Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said some voters in that area received sample ballots that directed them to the wrong polling places. Elsewhere on the Westside, other voters received no sample ballots until they complained and the city clerk hurriedly mailed out a new shipment.

Martinez said about 750 sample ballots were involved in the delayed mailing and the problem apparently had been caused by a single postal carrier. However, David Mazer, public affairs officer for the U.S. Postal Service, said 2,500 sample ballots were involved and it appears they were never received from the city.

Responsibility Denied

“There was no carrier that failed to deliver them,” he said. “One letter could fall behind a machine, but not 15 trays of mail.”

There also were reports that delivery of sample ballots was delayed because the city’s bulk rate postage account ran short at one point. Martinez said the account “never ran out of money.” However, Mazer said there was a one-day delay in the mailing last month because the account was $21,000 in the red.

Delays in counting the votes Tuesday night also drew criticism. Unofficial final returns were not available until 5 a.m. Wednesday, after Martinez’s staff initially predicted they would be ready about 1 a.m. Martinez insisted the ballot count was on schedule until a computer failure about midnight.

Meanwhile, East Valley Councilman Howard Finn, who authored the motion for a review of Tuesday’s election procedures by the city administrative officer, the city attorney and the city clerk, said there were reports that both he and Central City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay appeared on ballots in Council President Pat Russell’s airport-area district.

Martinez said Lindsay’s name showed up inadvertently on one voting machine and the machine was quickly taken out of service.

Counting Absentee Ballots

Other questions have been raised about a projected two-week delay in counting absentee ballots. Martinez said the absentee ballot total was higher than expected and verifying signatures is “a slow process that must be done by hand.”

Bradley acknowledged the absentee vote count could have been completed faster if extra personnel had been hired when large numbers of absentee ballot applications were requested. But he insisted the delay creates “no serious problems.”

Some observers said there had been considerable turnover in the city clerk’s office and some of the problems may have been caused by staff inexperience.

Former city election specialist Walter C. Peterson, who came out of retirement to assist Martinez, said that nine of the 11 full-time staff members in the elections office had come to work since the last mayoral election in 1981.

But Peterson, an election supervisor for 35 years who has been retained on a contract, said he recruited several former members of his staff to help out election night, and he said he did not attribute any problems to staff inexperience.