SUPERVISORIAL ELECTION : Calabasas Cityhood Ballots Mistakenly Sent to Voters

Calabasas isn’t even close on the map, but at least 191 voters in the 1st Supervisorial District were mistakenly sent absentee ballots for the Calabasas cityhood election--instead of ballots for Tuesday’s supervisorial race.

“It was an error on our part,” said Marcia Ventura, a spokeswoman for the county registrar of voters.

After receiving calls from confused voters, election officials sent out the correct ballots, along with a letter advising, “It has come to our attention that some absent voter ballot applicants in the 1st Supervisorial District election may have received a ballot for the Calabasas incorporation election,” which is scheduled for March 5.

“If you received the correct ballot, please destroy the enclosed ballot,” the letter says. “If you returned the wrong ballot, it will not be counted. The computer has been programmed to count only one correct ballot from each absentee voter.”

Ventura blamed the foul-up on an election worker confusing the light purple cityhood ballot for the light brown 1st District ballot.

One voter who received the wrong ballot, Mercedes Ibaven of El Sereno, said, “I was mad.” She said that at first she suspected dirty politics but was assured by county officials that the incident was an honest mistake. She said she received a correct ballot on Monday.

County officials said the snafu was limited to 191 voters who live in portions of the new district in Los Angeles, but they sent replacement ballots to 1,300 voters as a precaution. Officials said that no Calabasas residents received 1st District ballots.

Since no ballots have been opened yet, it is not known if any 1st District voters cast a vote on cityhood. Ibaven said she has heard of Calabasas, but doesn’t know anything about its cityhood battle.

Another resident, Yolanda Chavez of Boyle Heights, said she was shocked when she received the wrong ballot. “My main concern was whether this was going to deter people from voting because they are going to have to make that extra effort to call the registrar’s office to get the right ballot.”

Dennis Washburn, one of 13 City Council candidates on the Calabasas ballot, said jokingly, “Do I have to campaign now in the 1st District as well?”

Veronica Gutierrez, field coordinator for Gloria Molina’s campaign for supervisor, said the campaign has been calling voters who had not mailed their ballots by Thursday to “walk them to the polls rather than risk mailing them late.” She said that 1,200 absentee ballots were not counted in last month’s primary because they were received after polls closed at 8 p.m.

Peter Blackshaw, a spokesman for candidate Art Torres, said of the ballot mix-up: “The important thing for you to remember is that it’s not our doing.”

Molina and Torres are facing off in Tuesday’s election in a new district drawn by a federal judge who ruled that the old political boundaries discriminated against Latinos.

As of Thursday, 32,509 voters in the 1st District had requested absentee ballots, and 7,365 had returned them.

The mistakes, however, have not been limited to the registrar’s office. Elections officials report that they have received 500 requests for absentee ballots sent out by the campaigns to voters who live outside the 1st District. County officials sent a letter to those voters advising them that they are not eligible to vote in the 1st District race.