Bellflower : County Offers Apology for Voter Registration Mix-Up

The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder has apologized to 2,564 Bellflower residents for a mix-up over their voter registrations.

Residents of mobile home parks and apartment buildings were sent letters by the registrar in February informing them that their registrations were invalid because they had listed non-residential addresses. The Election Code requires that citizens list their places of residence. The Bellflower people were given the option of supplying residential addresses to rectify the situation.

The confusion apparently occurred when the registrar asked the city to supply a list of business licenses for a check on valid registrations. Bellflower licenses mobile home parks and apartments as businesses.

City Clerk Debra D. Bauchop said she marked all the mobile home and apartment addresses and discussed the list with the registrar on the phone. “I said they should disregard the highlighted addresses.”

But the registrar apparently failed to get the message. “It was an oversight on our part in this office,” said Henrietta Willis, a spokeswoman with the registrar.