Protesters unhappy with Merced County ballot errors: ‘We must demand transparency’
Protesters gathered in front of the Merced County Elections Office on Friday afternoon to voice displeasure over errors found on ballots mailed to some residents this week.
City of Merced residents on Wednesday began reporting the mistakes. Some reported ballots contained candidates outside of their district or were missing candidates running within the district.
“We must demand transparency and urgency to ensure that this does not continue and this is addressed as quickly and swiftly as possible,” said Fue Xiong. a candidate for Merced City Council District 6.
“We should get a fair, free election and it looks like this cycle, doesn’t seem like we’re getting it” added Merced City Council Member Bertha Perez. “There might have been mistakes, there might not have been mistakes, but at the end of the day this is unacceptable.”
About 20 people gathered for the protest. Perez, Xiong and Merced County Supervisor Rodrigo Espinoza all addressed the crowd.
Xiong expressed displeasure in the lack of response he received when he called to discuss the mistakes with the election office.
Xiong said he received little to no response when he asked what the errors were, how many precincts were affected, how many voters were impacted, and what is being done to fix the errors.
“I want to see more outreach,” Xiong said. “I want to see, one, wholeheartedly acknowledgment of the error, mistake, where it came from, what happened? There was a real lack of transparency with this, yet there’s no true acknowledgment of what happened.
“Nobody is really stepping up and saying, ‘This is exactly what happened. This is exactly what we’re doing. Here’s how many people were impacted.’”
Merced County sent out a news release Friday afternoon.
“This week, Merced County officials became aware of issues existing with some ballots mailed out for the 2022 General Election,” the statement read. “Precinct issues associated with the redistricting process resulted in some ballots containing incorrect local races.”
Officials have conducted a comprehensive internal review to assess the scope of the issue.
According to Merced County spokesperson Mike North, the affected precincts have been identified.
“Corrected ballots will be printed this weekend and mailed out on Monday only to the affected voters,” North said. “The corrected ballots will be marked with a “#2” located on the outside of the Vote-By-Mail envelope.”
All affected voters will receive a letter from the Merced County Elections Office with instructions on how to identify the correct ballot to complete and return, according to the release. They also will receive a call or email if their information is on file with the Registrar of Voters Office.
“I understand the election office will be sending out new ballots,” Xiong said. “But what are they going to do about the ones that are already out there? How are they going to count those that have already been sent back to the county?”
Anybody who votes in person will be given an updated ballot if they reside in the affected precincts.
“If an incorrect ballot is returned, the Elections Office will reach out to the voter to assist with returning a correct ballot prior to 8 p.m. on Election Day,” North said.
“Merced County is committed to safeguarding the integrity of its elections and will continue working diligently to resolve the aforementioned ballot issues,” North added.
Affected precincts included 142-2 Los Banos Measure D, 174-3 Los Banos Measure D, 180-0 Santa Nella Measure D, 180-1 Santa Nella Measure D, 186-1 Los Banos Measure D, 230-0 Merced City Council District 4, 230-1 Merced City Council District 4, 236 Merced City Council District 4, 254 Merced Council District 6, 340 Merced City Council District 6, 423-2 Gustine, Measure D, 461 Atwater Elementary School District Area 5.
“The idea here is we want there to be fair elections,” Xiong said. “We want to make sure that everybody got their ballots correctly, they’re able to turn it in, have their ballots counted and have their voices be heard because we need to ensure that we have fair elections here.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 6:13 PM.
