Orange County Faulted for Exposing Absentee Ballots

As Orange County’s absentee ballot count continued Tuesday, a state elections official said the security measures taken to protect the 32,000 uncounted votes late last week were deficient and probably a violation of state guidelines.

Debra Seiler, chief of elections in the California secretary of state’s office, said that security procedures “did not fulfill the requirement of the (State Election Code) that only authorized county staff should have access to the ballots.”

Concern about the security of the ballots was sparked Sunday when it was found that an outside door to a warehouse holding thousands of the ballots was unlocked, leaving them open to the possibility of theft or tampering.

County election officials said none of the ballots appeared to have been disturbed, but they conceded that they probably will not be able to determine for certain whether any ballots were taken.

The outcomes of several close elections in the county, including three city council races, could hinge on the absentee ballots.

County Registrar of Voters Donald F. Tanney stopped the absentee count at 8 p.m. Tuesday and said workers would resume at 7 a.m. today. Tanney previously had said the count would probably be finished by Tuesday evening.

Tanney has said he expects to certify the election results by next Tuesday, but a controversy still surrounds the security of the ballots themselves and could cause a delay in the state’s certification of election results.

Seiler said the uncounted absentee ballots should have been kept in a security cage or in another locked room to ensure that they were not tampered with.

“Having them in the warehouse doesn’t seem to fit the scheme of security requirements,” she said. “If there were any possibility that anyone could come in through a variety of points, then it was not the ideal arrangement.”

Tanney said he would not dispute Seiler’s assessment until he has researched state regulations. He had said earlier that it has never been the practice in the registrar’s office to secure absentee ballots.

Ponders Independent Inquiry

The registrar said it has still not been determined who last checked the door that was found unlocked. Nor has it been determined how long it was unlocked. He said he may call for an independent investigation.

Officials have speculated that building custodians may have used the door and forgotten to lock it. But the owner of the Laguna Hills-based Sante Fe Building Maintainance Co. said a work crew of two had cleaned the building about 8:30 p.m. Sunday and could not have caused the security breach.

“They hadn’t been there Saturday night and arrived very late Sunday,” said the owner, Abel Farias. “Besides, they only clean the offices. They don’t even go into the warehouse,” he added.

Tanney insisted that election workers in the building on Saturday would not have used the warehouse door. He said office workers checked to make sure the warehouse doors were locked on Friday before they left.

“I’ve just been dumbstruck for the last 15 hours, trying to figure out how this happened,” he said.

But he defended security procedures and said the incident should not “cast a cloud” over the election process.

“I don’t think this has reduced the integrity of the process,” he said. “We are operating on the assumption that nothing was tampered with.”

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Anthony L. Miller said Tuesday that his office will evaluate the security breach to determine “whether or not that tainted the process in such a way to make it impossible for us to determine the intent of the voters.”

But he added: “The mere fact that the warehouse was open, although certainly improper, doesn’t itself mean the election is suspect.”

Both Miller and Seiler said county officials should be able to determine whether all of the ballots are accounted for. “It is important that all the loose ends are tied up,” Miller said.

No Precise Count Made

But Tanney said it would be almost impossible to determine for certain whether ballots are missing because no one made a precise count when they were brought to the warehouse. County officials had estimated the number of the ballots at 32,000, based on the capacity of the trays they were placed in.

Tanney said it was not likely that anyone could alter the ballots without leaving signs of tampering. The person would have to possess a sophisticated knowledge of the registrar’s coding system and a way to open and reseal the envelopes.

“I think the probability of that occurring in this instance is nil,” he said.

Meanwhile, a San Francisco lawyer who is drafting a lawsuit on behalf of voters who may have been intimidated at 20 Santa Ana polling places by uniformed security guards hired by the county Republican Party said the security breach may be included in the suit.

“It certainly strengthens the case that the results should not be validated,” attorney Lowell Finley said.

DA Investigating

In another election matter, the Orange County district attorney’s office confirmed Tuesday that it is involved in the investigation of the stationing of the guards at the polls--an action that has been denounced by both Republican and Democratic leaders.

David J. Munro, a senior attorney’s investigator for the Orange County district attorney’s bureau of investigation, said the office has been working with the FBI, which is looking into the matter. He said he did not know when the investigation might be complete and would give no further details.

Also, Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Andrea S. Ordin said Tuesday that the state attorney general’s division of public rights had offered to back up the investigation.

“We thought, just like everybody else thought, when we saw it on the news that night (Election Day) that it appeared there had been . . . the potential of intimidation of voters at the voting booth,” Ordin said.

She added that the issue of voters’ rights is an area “we are deeply concerned with.” She said that because other agencies were already handling the investigation, the attorney general’s office would not be directly involved.