Just days after thousands of voters in the Sunnyslope Water
District race were told their votes may be invalid, head elections
official John Hodges said people should not be worried by the most
recent turn of events – multiple absentee ballots mailed to
individual voters.
Hollister – Just days after thousands of voters in the Sunnyslope Water District race were told their votes may be invalid, head elections official John Hodges said people should not be worried by the most recent turn of events – multiple absentee ballots mailed to individual voters.
Several mailing labels were printed for some individual absentee voters due to a glitch in the elections office’s computer software system last week, according to Hodges. The glitch resulted in several voters receiving more than one ballot in the mail.
“We called the software company (Digital Information Management Systems) and said ‘How could this happen?’ They said they didn’t know, but they’re looking into it,” Hodges said.
DIMS representative George Shipley said he was aware of the problem, but wasn’t sure whether it was due to a glitch in the company’s software.
“It may have been a glitch in the software, or it may have been a clerical error. It may have been both. There was probably a combination of things leading up to the error. But the voters can rest assured that only one vote will be counted (for each person),” said Shipley.
While Hodges said he had heard of several absentee voters receiving up to three ballots in the mail, he and his election workers said there was no way two ballots from the same person could get through their system.
Each absentee ballot that comes into the elections office is scanned with a wand resembling a grocery store price-scanner, which verifies the address and signature of the voter, and notifies the election worker if a ballot has already been counted for that voter.
The word “duplicate” comes up on the computer screen and on the print-out if more than one ballot is received from an individual, said elections worker Tom Cole. If this is the case, only first-received ballot will count.
“I’m the only one who scans these, so they’re not changing hands from person to person. If there’s a duplicate, I’ll know,” said Cole.
And there’s no way the computer will miss a duplication, according to Hodges.
“That was my first question (when we got the computer),” he said. “The computer is guaranteed. Nobody’s going to get by it. We’ve never had a problem before.”
Out of the 26,477 registered voters in San Benito County, 10,530 of them are voting absentee, and 5,532 of them are permanent absentee voters, according to the elections office.
Earlier this week, absentee voters in the Sunnyslope Water District were surprised to learn a misprint on their ballots had invalidated their votes for their water district directors. The incorrect ballot told voters to choose three candidates for the position, but there are actually only two available spots. The elections office responded by sending letters to each voter in the district informing them of the error and asking them to vote again in person. Hodges pledged to do “everything we can to make this right.”
This past March, the elections office came under fire for counting four absentee ballots illegally turned in by Board of Supervisors candidate Jaime De La Cruz’s campaign because of bad advice from the elections office, according to Hodges, who said earlier this week that the same thing would not happen again. De La Cruz’s campaign manager was recently cleared of any wrongdoing in the matter.
In the same election, the Department of Justice threatened to sue the county for not provided enough resources for Spanish-speaking voters. Hodges said Monday that his office was working hard to rectify the situation, and is currently requesting all Spanish-speaking county workers to lend their services to the election.
Jessica Quandt is a staff writer for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
