Errors on Sample Ballots

Al Schwartz knew something was wrong the minute he glanced at his sample ballot: The address listed as his polling place for next month’s election wasn’t even in Los Angeles, much less his Chatsworth neighborhood.

Instead of his usual voting spot, the school 100 yards from his house, Schwartz was instructed to travel to the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello--a 45-minute freeway trek away.

“At first, I believed it, and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? I am not going to drive 45 minutes to vote,’ ” Schwartz, 70, said Monday. “Then I thought about it more and realized, ‘No, even they could not think that someone would do that.’ ”

Schwartz was right. He is one of numerous residents in the northwest San Fernando Valley who received erroneous sample ballots last week from the Los Angeles city clerk’s office. Some volunteer poll workers from Chatsworth also were notified in writing that they would have to go to Montebello.

“We do use that location as a valid precinct, but as to how that happened, I do not know yet,” Joe Giles, the assistant chief of the city clerk’s elections division, said Monday. “Now our work begins. We will do a thorough review to make sure that nothing else went wrong.”

A similar mistake occurred earlier this year before the April primary, when city elections officials mailed wrong poll information to two precincts in the Torrance area.

But Giles said the mistakes should be considered in the larger context of the gargantuan task before city officials, who mail information to 1.9 million registered voters in more than 2,000 precincts.

The important part, Giles said, is to correct them before the June election, when ballot items include the proposed overhaul of the City Charter and several City Council races.

Officials plan to mail postcards to 1,500 Chatsworth voters later this week listing their correct polling place.

Many voters, including Schwartz, use their sample ballots for considering the issues and often take them to the polls.