San Bernardino County Computers Scramble Elections

Computer ballot-counting errors in San Bernardino County this week have thrown 33 races into doubt and may be so serious that those listed as getting the least votes actually might be winners, the registrar of voters said Friday.

A county employee erroneously programmed the computer so that, for instance, it sometimes read the punch-card lists from the bottom up. A hole punched for the last candidate listed in a race, therefore, would have been read as a vote for the first, county spokesman David Wert said.

A recount of all 82 races and 85,000 ballots cast on Tuesday will be completed by next Tuesday, he said.

“There are going to be at least a few races in which people who appeared to have won and were the high . . . [vote-getters] were actually the low . . . ,” Wert said. “Some races are going to be reversed.”

Most of the races affected were school boards or community college districts throughout San Bernardino County. Nine were in water districts or special districts. No city races were affected.

“It is going to be a long three days,” said Bill Klein, who had appeared to be an upset winner in the Chino Valley Unified School District, ousting one of two longtime incumbents. “It is a case where you are frustrated, shocked and concerned.”

In the Ontario-Montclair School District, 20-year incumbent David Van Fleet of Ontario said he was shocked to see the final tally showing that he finished sixth out of seven candidates. He had expected to finish in the top three and win his sixth term.

“Everyone that came up to me afterward said they went out and voted for me,” he said. “They asked me how could I lose. I couldn’t explain it.”

The name of the programmer responsible was not released, but officials said the person is a veteran county employee. The employee reported that tests before the election showed the system was working correctly, said Registrar Ingrid Gonzales, who oversees elections.

The county brought in a consultant, software provider DIMS Inc., on Thursday to review the programming and found the errors, Gonzales said. The testing and analysis the employee said had been done apparently was not, Gonzales said.

In some cases, the computer began counting in the middle of the ballot, so some holes weren’t counted at all, Gonzales said.

Based on the review by DIMS, the candidates’ totals will certainly change in 26 races. Officials are not sure what effect, if any, the error had on the other seven races in doubt.

“For some races, it may not have any effect on people who were going to lose anyway, but a significant number of races could be changed,” Gonzales said.

The city election results will be counted Tuesday as well, just to make sure there were no problems and to give people confidence in the results, Gonzales said. A test showed the computer was programmed correctly for municipal races, she said.

Officials became concerned Tuesday night when the computer showed no votes cast for the Big River Community Services District board of directors.

An extensive review of the election system was conducted Wednesday through Friday, and widespread errors were found, Gonzales said. A letter was mailed to more than 300 candidates on Wednesday notifying them of potential problems.

“This is certainly rare, but it happens,” said Gonzales, who has served eight years as registrar and 21 years in the field. “You hear stories across the nation about elections being tainted. I never thought it would happen here.”

From now on, an outside firm will be brought in before all elections to confirm that computers are properly programmed.

“It’s hard to describe how personally disappointed I am that this has happened,” Gonzales said. “I would like to assure the public that we know exactly how this error occurred and that measures are underway to prevent it from ever happening again.”

County officials said the good news is that using a card-counting system means that ballots are still around to be recounted. If the same error had occurred with an electronic voting system, there would be no paper record, Wert said.

The employee responsible for the error has been disciplined, but Wert declined to say how. Gonzales said the person still is on the job but has been taken off computer programming duty.

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Correspondent Tipton Blish contributed to this report.