Late Returns : Registrar’s office: A Long Beach machinist died in ‘89, but an absentee ballot for him is sent to the Woodland Hills attorney who handled the estate.

Frank Adams’ absentee ballot arrived in plenty of time for the presidential election, but the former Long Beach Republican won’t be voting. He died three years ago.

Adams’ ballot showed up Friday in the office of Woodland Hills attorney Bryce Neff, who handled the deceased machinist’s estate. Although it might be argued that Adams does generally fit the description of absentee, Neff did not even consider voting in the dead man’s place.

“I don’t think Ross (Perot) has a chance anyway,” Neff said.

The problem began three weeks ago, when Neff received a voter-information pamphlet for Adams, which contained a form allowing the voter to request an absentee ballot. Instead of throwing the package away, Neff returned it.

“I thought I’d covered it pretty well when I took a red pen and said, ‘This man passed away,’ ” Neff said. “I guess not.”

At first, the county denied there was any error. Marcia Ventura, a spokeswoman for the county registrar’s office, which oversees voter registration, initially declared it was impossible for a ballot to have been sent unless Adams or someone posing as Adams had filled out a formal request and signed his name to it.

“I don’t believe that they would have received a ballot,” Ventura said, despite assurances that one had indeed arrived at Neff’s office. “The only way you can get an absentee ballot is to fill out a form or write to us requesting one.”

Later, however, Beatriz Valdez, assistant county registrar-recorder/county clerk, confirmed that the ballot had been sent mistakenly.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Valdez said. She said a computer operator had mistaken the returned voter-information pamphlet as a request for an absentee ballot.

“It was just an error,” Valdez said. “They put it in the pile to be processed” and mailed to absentee voters. Valdez added that the county now plans to delete Adams from the voter rolls.

Southern California voting records showed--at least until Tuesday--that Los Angeles County considered Adams to be alive and well--and residing in Neff’s office.

“We do show him as an active registered voter on the file out of Woodland Hills,” Ventura said. Neff’s wife, Suzi, who works as his secretary, said she hoped the embarrassing publicity would push the county to remove Adams’ name from its register.

“I just don’t think dead people should keep getting ballots,” Suzi Neff said.