About 1,000 voters get wrong ballots in Merced

The Merced County Registrar of Voters Office is trying this week to clean up a mistake that sent almost 1,000 incorrect sample or absentee ballots to voters in central Merced.

According to the registrar, 989 voters in Merced College Board of Trustees Area 4 received ballots that omitted the names of candidates in the board seat race. Of those, 456 were vote-by-mail ballots.

The Area 4 contest pits incumbent Dennis Jordan against newcomer William Hamilton.

All of the incorrect ballots went to voters in two bordering precincts bounded roughly by the Santa Fe railroad tracks and Olive Avenue, as well as G and M streets. There are about 17,000 registered voters in Area 4, which means roughly 6 percent received incorrect ballots.

“It’s unfortunate that it happened,” said Registrar of Voters Barbara Levey. “But, fortunately, it’s early enough that we could address it.”

The problem stemmed from changes to the Merced College trustee districts in 2012, Levey said, but this is the first election in that trustee area since the lines were redrawn. After learning of the mistake Monday, she said, the staff has been working to correct the mistake.

Levey said correct ballots were being sent out Tuesday and today to those 989 voters in Area 4, along with a notice explaining the mistake. Absentee voters who have already mailed in ballots will have the opportunity to fill out the new ballot, which includes the Area 4 race, and return it to the registrar’s office.

Absentee voters tend to be educated and are likely to read the proper ballots, Levey said. “Those voters especially are very conscientious about voting and making sure that their vote counts,” she said. “So, I believe that they will review the material and submit that.”

The registrar’s staff will set aside ballots from those precincts and not count them until they are sure that voters in those areas have had a shot at getting the proper ballots. Those who received sample ballots, she said, will get new sample ballots in the mail with a notice that explains the mistake.

The incorrectly sent vote-by-mail ballots will not be destroyed, Levey said, but rather kept to maintain a paper trail of the process.

No absentee ballots have been counted so far, she said. Those counts won’t begin until late next week.

The mistake was discovered by an Area 4 voter who goes to church with Jordan. The voter told Jordan, who said he passed the message on to the registrar.

Jordan said he trusts that the registrar will correct as much of the mistake as possible. “I appreciate the efforts that are being put forth by the elections department to rectify this problem,” he said. “Although I realize it will not totally clear the problem, it will go a long ways in doing so.”

Jordan, 73, joined the board in 2010 and is in his second year as president. The retired English instructor noted the mistaken ballots would have been a much larger problem had his friend from church not mentioned it to him.

The other candidate in the race, Hamilton, is a 28-year-old who graduated from UC Merced in 2012 and works as a laboratory technician for the university, where he assists in preparing classrooms for science courses. He did not return calls or emails requesting comment.

Levey said software in the voting system has been fixed so voters going to the polls get correct ballots. She said the software change should ensure correct ballots in the future.

She said she plans to look at adding global-positioning software to next year’s budget to avoid any mistakes in future races. “We want to help prevent this from occurring again,” she said. “And so we are evaluating what may be available to us.”

Voters living within the affected precincts should watch their mail closely this week for the new ballots, Levey said.

Ballots for all voters in the county this year include races and measures that cover multiple pages. Levey urged all voters to review absentee and sample ballots carefully.

This story was originally published October 22, 2014 at 7:16 PM with the headline "About 1,000 voters get wrong ballots in Merced."