Hundreds of voter guides found in Tower District dumpster, Fresno election officials say

Hundreds of Fresno County voter guides were recovered Friday from a Tower District recycling dumpster, election officials reported. The Fresno County Registrar of Voter’s office was notified shortly before 4 p.m. Friday that about 200 copies of county voter information guides and four copies of state voter guides were found in the recycling dumpster. No ballots were discarded, the registrar’s office said.

The voter guides were properly mailed through the U.S. Postal Service. Elections officials were working to determine which voters were affected to quickly send new copies of the Fresno County voter guides in the coming days. The Registrar of Voters is working with local, state and federal officials to determine how the voting materials ended up in the dumpster and to prevent similar incidents from occurring again.

The Fresno County incident comes on the heels of ballot errors discovered in Merced County. There, 40ballots in the cities of Merced, Los Banos and Gustine were missing certain local races or included incorrect candidates. The Merced County Elections Office said the errors occurred because of mapping issues after new district lines were drawn earlier this year. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Click here to read the full article at the FresnoBee

Woman Finds Box of Mail-in Ballots on East Hollywood Sidewalk; LA County Registrar Investigating

The Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office and the United States Postal Service are investigating after 104 ballots were found unopened on the sidewalk in East Hollywood.

The ballots were found by Christina Repaci, who was walking her dog Saturday evening.

“I turned the corner and I just saw this box of envelopes, and it was a USPS box. I picked some envelopes up and I saw they were ballots,” said Repaci.

Repaci said she took them home for safekeeping while trying to figure out what to do next. She sent videos of the ballots to popular social media accounts to share the content and ask for guidance on next steps. Repaci said she called several politicians and the LA County Sheriff’s Department.

“I actually called the Sheriff’s Department. I couldn’t get through, so I emailed them,” she said. “I got an email back from a deputy basically in so many words saying it wasn’t their problem, and to contact the USPS.”

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Repaci said after much back and forth, the LA County Registrar’s Office got in contact with her about picking up the ballots. Registrar Dean Logan personally drove to pick up the ballots.

“He (Logan) picked them up. I made sure he was legit. He gave me a card, and took a photo of the box,” she said.

Repaci described the process as “stressful.”

“It was so much stress and for just one person to get back to me. What do I do here? Now if it happens to someone else, they don’t know what to do. They’ll just put them in a dumpster or throw them in the trash. I just don’t think it should have been this hard to figure out what to do with legal ballots. This is a country of freedom and our votes should matter and something like this should never happen,” said Repaci. 

The LA County Registrar’s Office released a statement:

“Our office was notified over the weekend of a mail tray found containing approximately 104 unopened, outbound Vote by Mail ballots and additional mail pieces. Thanks to the cooperation of the person who found the ballots, we were able to quickly respond and coordinate the secure pickup of the ballots. We have reissued new ballots to the impacted voters. Early signs indicate that this was an incident of mail theft and not a directed attempt at disrupting the election. We are cooperating with the United States Postal Service and law enforcement to investigate.

Click here to read the full article at FoxNews