San Joaquin County Has Most Mangled Ballots

Nobody votes with the sheer relish of people in San Joaquin County. That’s real relish, not the metaphor.

The California secretary of state’s office reports the county turned in the most food-stained, torn and bent ballots of the state’s 58 counties.

All told, San Joaquin County received 5,000 mangled ballots on election day. That’s 3,400 more than Los Angeles, the state’s most populous county.

“It’s a torn card, it’s a crumpled card, it’s a card where they tried to mark the square and they accidentally hit the pen or pencil in the wrong spot,” said Deborah Hench, the county registrar of voters. “And the absentee voters -- they do spill their coffees and sodas and accidentally get jelly on them.”