Errors Kept Absentee Ballots From Voters, Official Says

Nearly 2% of all voters who requested absentee ballots in this month’s local elections failed to receive them due to errors by the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office, and candidates who lost tight races may contest the results of their elections.

The problem was apparently caused by data clerks hitting the wrong key while generating absentee ballots on the county’s new election computer system, erroneously suppressing 1,697 ballots that should have been mailed to voters.

“We need to take the blame here,” said Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Conny B. McCormack, who sent letters to all affected voters explaining what happened. “It’s not the post office, it’s not the campaign.”

McCormack said that in future elections her office will reconcile the number of absentee ballots requested with the number sent out to ensure that none were suppressed--a procedure already used by the city of Los Angeles. The county will also reprogram its system to diminish the likelihood of hitting the wrong key.

The problem came to the registrar-recorder’s attention, she said, when poll workers on election day reported an unusual number of voters complaining they did not receive absentee ballots in the mail. An investigation found that 1.8% of all absentee ballots fell afoul of the glitch. McCormack sent letters to all voters who did not receive their ballots apologizing for the errors.

The snafu may have had an impact in four hard-fought races in which the number of ballots withheld was greater than the margin of victory for the winning candidate.

The most glaring example is the contentious race for three seats on the board of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, which has struggled with a $100,000 debt and lost its superintendent earlier this year after he was accused of misusing his district credit card. Battles on the board have grown so contentious that some Beverly Hills socialites organize dinner parties based on when board meetings air on local cable access channels.

Two insurgents and incumbent Virginia Maas were the top three vote-getters, with incumbent Allison O’Kyle losing her seat by 22 votes. According to the registrar-recorder’s office, 79 people who had requested absentee ballots for the election did not receive them and did not make it to the polls on election day.

O’Kyle could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but McCormack said she expects the results of that election to be contested by the Monday deadline.

In Westlake Village, incumbent James Henderson lost his City Council seat by 20 votes. However, only 24 voters failed to receive absentee ballots and did not vote in that race, and Henderson, 84, said it was unlikely he would sink his resources into a legal challenge to the election. But he was flabbergasted nonetheless.

“I don’t know what to say about it,” Henderson said. “It sure is a mess and I hope the county cleans it up.”

Two other elections also ended with margins of victory narrower than the number of voters who failed to receive absentee ballots. Both were in Hawthorne, where Pablo Catano finished third in a race for two City Council seats, 14 votes away from victory. In a race for the school board, Jack Yee missed winning a seat by 13 votes.

Twenty-one Hawthorne voters did not receive absentee ballots and did not go to the polls.

During this election, 60% of all those who received an absentee ballot voted, and McCormack said the rate of absentee voting countywide has never cracked 80%.