Colin McConville – Staff Writer
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HOLLISTER
County Clerk Joe Paul Gonzalez acknowledged that there is a problem with the mail-in ballots having party affiliations on the front of the return envelopes.
Concerned Hollister resident Deb Wianecki, who brought the problem to the elections officials’ attention, contends the issue is of great importance.
“(The ballot) goes through many hands before it gets the scanning machine … It’s for the security of all voters,” Wianecki said.
Due to a 2007 change in California Election Code, return envelopes for general elections cannot have political party affiliations on them. The code allows, however, for parties to be listed on the envelope during a primary.
Gonzalez said this was an error with the envelope printer and said that when officials learned of the error, all ballots were sent without parties listed on the envelopes. He doesn’t see this problem as much of an issue because something like this happens in every election due to human error – he said it doesn’t affect a person’s ability to vote.
Gonzalez called Robbie Anderson, who is the state’s elections counsel, who said that no other action should be taken, he said. Of the three other counties that had the same problem with the printer, no other complaints have gone to the secretary of state’s office, Anderson told Gonzalez.
